Not particularly sensational

So let me get this straight. Obama has decided to fight the court-ordered release of torture pictures which, he claims, are “not particularly sensational” and “would not add any additional benefit to our understanding,” but would, if published, “further inflame anti-American opinion and... put our troops in greater danger.” So the pictures are unsensational but inflammatory. Or maybe he means unsensational to jaded Americans but inflammatory for excitable foreigners.

I’d guess that the real reason here, besides a lot of whining from the military, is that some of the pictures are of abuse that occurred in Obama’s favorite war, Afghanistan, where information about detainee abuse at Bagram – indeed, any information about detainees in Bagram – has been kept relatively quiet – no Lynddie Englands with digital cameras.

He focused on the fact that these abuses of prisoners – which at one point in his statement today he referred to as “alleged abuse” – occurred in the past. But not everyone shares his belief that the United States was born anew on January 20th. He inherited this country’s past along with its government, and while he attempts to sound like an objective outsider making judgments about what is or is not sensational, what will or will not aid the public understanding, he fails to realize that what he sounds like, because it’s what he is, is the head of a government covering up for employees of the government. He is not a disinterested bystander. Bush and Rumsfeld’s cover-up is now Obama’s cover-up.

What, according to Obama, are the dangers of releasing the photos? “I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.” I puzzled over that for a while with no success, but I think Digby has successfully decoded it: “Apparently, the logic is that the military will refuse to investigate criminal behavior if there is any chance that pictures of such criminal behavior could be made public. So we simply won’t make pictures of it public anymore.” To put it another way, the military has other goals that it values more than stopping the abuse of detainees, and Obama is validating those priorities.

In the end, it’s all about protecting our troops: “I am concerned about how the release of these photos would be -- would impact on the safety of our troops.” So if you oppose this cover-up, you hate our troops.

Seems to me I’ve heard all this before.

Name that party!

So the RNC intends to rename the Democratic Party the “Democrat Socialist Party.” Ha ha, the Democrat Socialist Party. It’s funny because it’s true.

Clearly the GOP needs a new name too. Any suggestions?

No role in his life and in his personality

Name of the Day (although that day may be sometime in the nineteenth century): the commander of Walter Reed, Col. Coots. Col. Norvell V. Coots, in fact. The V. stands for Vandervall, but then it would, wouldn’t it?

Donald Trump has decided that Carrie Prejean may retain her Miss California title, noting that her views on same-sex marriage are the same as Barack Obama’s. To be fair, I wouldn’t really want him to be Miss California either.

The pope’s spokesmodel, Rev. Federico Lombardi (director of the Vatican Press Office), after first denying that Ratzi had been in the Hitler Youth – “never, never, never” – had to admit that well yes he had but “This fact of the Hitler Youth had no role in his life and in his personality.” The reverend is in the good-and-evil biz, so you’d think he wouldn’t be suggesting that Benny was completely unaffected by the Hitler Youth as if this should be considered a good thing rather than a sign of deep moral obtuseness.

Pope Benny failed to mention his youthful Hitlerian experiences while visiting Israel and giving a speech at the Holocaust Memorial, and he spoke about the Holocaust (he used the approved, Jews-only term Shoah) in the passive voice, that is, without mentioning that Germans had anything to do with it. So perhaps he didn’t learn anything in the Hitler Youth after all.

Cheney is outraged

Icky Quote of the Day, from Randall Terry about Obama’s visit to Notre Dame: “Our mission is to tar him with the blood of the babies so he can never shake it between now and 2012.”

Yesterday on Fox Business News, Neil Cavuto interviewed a man whose mouth always waters when he hears the phrase “blood of the babies,” Dick Cheney.

He accused the Obama admin of missing the big torture picture: “They did it in a way that sort of blocked so far any real discussion of the results of the program, and instead focused upon the techniques themselves.”

Because when you focus on techniques such as sleep deprivation, waterboarding, “walling” and the like, you miss the real outrage: “And they really began the debate then with the suggestions that perhaps people should be prosecuted for having participated in the program or the lawyers who gave us these opinions should be disbarred. I think it’s an outrage.” See, and you thought there was nothing so awful that could outrage Cheney.

A ROLLING CHENEY GATHERS NO MOSS: “I don’t think we should just roll over when the new administration says -- accuses of us committing torture, which we did not, or somehow violating the law, which we did not. I think you need to stand up and respond to that, and that’s what I’ve done.”

EXISTENTIALISM: Asked about the possibility of Israel bombing Iranian centrifuges: “I would find it that it would be a reflection of the fact that the Israelis believe this is an existential threat to the state of Israel. ... So, I would expect them to try to do something about it.”

Cavuto asked if Guantanamo prisoners should be released into the US and go on welfare. Cheney said no.

On Guantanamo, “I think if you didn’t have it, you’d have to invent it.”

He referred to the Uighur prisoners as “Chinese terrorists.”

He said Obama is using the economic situation as an “excuse... to significantly broaden the power and authority of the government over the private sector.” He has another solution, which is... wait for it... wait for it... tax cuts.

ON THE NEED FOR A FRESH NEW FACE FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: “I like Jeb. I think he’s a good man. ... I’d probably support him for president.” He didn’t say who Jeb should choose as running mate...

Thought of the Day

Maybe we waterboarded Abu Zubaydah 83 times because there were 83 ticking time-bombs.

How many Tories does it take to change a light bulb?

I’ve been enjoying the British scandal (by which I mean a lot of faux moral outrage about something fairly insignificant in the broader scheme of things) over MPs’ taxpayer-reimbursed expenses, which started with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith having to apologize for her husband’s porn pay-per-view habit, continued with David “Two Brains” Willetts (the Tory shadow secretary for innovation, universities and skills) hiring an electrician to change some light bulbs, and today reached Douglas Hogg, who was John Major’s agriculture minister, putting in claims for a mole man at his mansion (sadly, that’s a man who exterminates moles, not an actual mole-man) and of course for clearing the moat. Cleaning the moat. How many American politicians even own a moat?

Speaker of the House Michael Martin is outraged... that someone leaked the expense reports to the press. Says Times parliamentary sketchwriter Ann Treneman, “His attire didn’t help: at times, as the buffoon black robe ballooned away, he resembled an enraged parachute.”

Stand-up Obama

Obama, at the NerdProm: “In the next hundred days, our bipartisan outreach will be so successful that even John Boehner will consider becoming a Democrat. After all, we have a lot in common. He is a person of color. Although not a color that appears in the natural world.”

Read his entire gig here.

Or watch it. Part I



Part II

If we had been about torture, we wouldn’t have wasted our time going to the Justice Department

Dick Cheney went on Face the Nation this morning, because nothing says Happy Mother’s Day like Dick Cheney defending torture.

He was just happy to be there: “It’s nice to know that you’re still loved and are invited out in public sometimes.”

He accused the Obama admin of selective release of documents, and if there’s one thing Dick Cheney hates, it’s the selective release of documents: “They don’t have any qualms at all about putting things out that can be used to be critical of the Bush administration policies. But when you’ve got memos out there that show precisely how much was achieved and how lives were saved as a result of these policies, they won’t release those.”

AN INTELLIGENT INTERROGATION PROGRAM: On shutting down torture, which he says saved “thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives”: “Well, then you’d have to say that, in effect, we’re prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than run an intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we need to protect America.”

OH, IT’S NEVER A WASTE OF TIME GOING TO THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: “If we had been about torture, we wouldn’t have wasted our time going to the Justice Department.” The logic is inescapable.


I’M NOT TAKING THE RAP FOR THIS ALONE: Asked if Bush knew about the torture: “I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew -- he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.” He “basically” authorized it”?

Why Guantanamo is still needed: “The group that’s left, the 245 or so, these are the worst of the worst. This is the hard core. You’d have a recidivism rate out of this group of maybe 50 or 60 percent. ... I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.”

EVIDENTLY HE STILL HAS THAT MAN-SIZED SAFE: “I think there is room for moderates in the Republican Party.”

Rush and Colin Powell have been trying to expel each other from the Republican party. Where, oh where, does the Dickster stand?: “Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.”

A bridge over the valley of the Pennsylvania electorate

Follow-up: Arlen Specter’s fake cancer cure website, which I mentioned here yesterday, has now been altered, making it clear that funds raised will go to the Specter campaign and not cancer, unless of course you consider Arlen Specter to be a cancer on the body politic.

Chores

A survey (in Britain) has determined that cleaning the oven is the most disliked household chore.

Wait... you’re supposed to clean the oven?

There are people who want to create panic in the country and destroy it

Obama admin people are referring to prisoners “we cannot release and cannot try” as if that’s an actual legal category.

The Pakistani military is finally responding to American demands that they start killing Pakistanis (or, as the army spokesmodel called them, “miscreants”), using air strikes and mortars (what else you gonna do with miscreants?) and calling for residents of the Swat valley to flee so they can turn it into a free-fire zone. The army is air-dropping leaflets saying, “There are people who want to create panic in the country and destroy it. Do you want that?” That’s a trick question, right?

(Update: and the NYT quotes another government pamphlet which associates the Taliban with the worst miscreants of all: “They are the same as Jewish forces who are against the existence and security of the country and wanted to create disturbance in the region.”)

A bridge over the valley of death

Arlen Specter has launched “Specter for the Cure,” which he calls “a bold new initiative to reform our government’s medical research efforts, cut red tape and unstrangle the hope for accelerated cures.” His website proclaims, “Senator Arlen Specter intends to build a bridge over the valley of death.”

Or, to put it another way, Specter for the Cure is nothing more than a website at which you can donate money they want you to think is going to find a cure for cancer, but which actually goes to Specter’s re-election campaign.

Prick.

(Update: in case Specter is shamed into taking this down, I’ve taken the liberty of taking a screen capture.)

Of learning goals, savage-ry, and the dreaded Tennis Balls of Doom

Bumper sticker seen yesterday: “I achieved my learning goals at Salvador Elementary.”

Thanks a lot, Britain, for making me have to side with Michael Savage in the interests of civil liberties. By the way, it may not have been clear in the news reports that when Britain released the list of people it was banning from entering the country because their opinions are too unpleasant for Brits to cope with, those people hadn’t actually applied to enter Britain. Indeed, some of them are Russian skin heads currently serving long prison terms. So it was just sort of a random list of People We Don’t Like. Of course the real point of the exercise is that Britain’s policy of excluding “radical imams” was beginning to look anti-Muslim, so, like Bush tacking non-Muslim North Korea onto his “axis of evil,” they decided to include Savage and the skinheads. But they couldn’t say that that was the reason they were releasing the list to the press, so it was presented as “naming and shaming” hate-mongers.

Important follow-up: the cat is still not warming to the tennis balls.


Where can I get me one of those hats?

Dude, you just blew my mind

More profundity from the maverick:

A bridge too far

Things Sen. John Thune said about his opposition to a gay person being appointed to the Supreme Court that sound pretty darn homoerotic themselves:

“I know the administration is being pushed”

“but I think it would be a bridge too far right now”

“my hope is that he’ll play it a little more down the middle”

Of moving on from debates about the past and killer tennis balls from hell

John McCain and his aged catamite Lindsey Graham have an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, mostly about how “preventive detention” of enemy combatants should go on for as long as The War Against Terror (TWAT) continues (i.e., forever) and how America’s silly criminal courts aren’t up to the task of dealing with such prisoners. They also reiterate McCain’s position on the legal memos that it is time to “move on from debates about the past,” i.e., torture, which is interesting from John “I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live” McCain.

I was in a dollar store today. The cat is currently staring dubiously at the tennis ball I bought her. It’s just sitting there, but she’s seen it roll, and that’s pretty suspicious in her book. Wait till she finds out there are two more tennis balls.

But the real question of the day is, who would buy a home pregnancy test at a dollar store?

Besides a member of the Palin family, I mean.

Obama’s personal connection to the Zionist idea

Joe (“I would not, could not, on a plane, I would not, could not, on a train”) Biden gave a speech at the AIPAC conference today. He has been widely reported as having been tough on Israel, in that he said there needs to a two-state solution and that Israel should stop with the settlements already (new ones, anyway). Of course most of the actual speech was a big wet kiss.

SHARED VALUES: “The bond between Israel and the United States was forged by a shared interest in peace and security; by shared values and to respect all faiths and for all faiths and for all people; by deep ties evidenced here today among our citizens, both Christian and Jew”. Muslims, not so much.

AS THEY SAY IN THE SENATE: “I want to congratulate my friend, Prime Minister Netanyahu -- and as they say in the Senate, he is my friend -- for his victory.”

FUNNY, HE DOESN’T LOOK...: “[Obama’s] support is rooted in his personal connection to the Zionist idea”.

AND IF I LIFT MY FOOT, YOU CAN SEE THAT RIGHTFUL PLACE: “We want Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations, politically and economically.”

He seemed to accept the current Likud claim that without outside agitators (i.e., Iran), there would be no problems in the Middle East: “Iran also has played a dangerous role in the region supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and undermining many of our friends and those who claim to be our friends. Indeed, these proxies are the tools in my view, our view, that Iran uses to exploit conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- use it to their advantage.”

However, he didn’t entirely buy into the corollary of that theory, that Iran will have to be crushed before Israel even attempts any dialogue with the Palestinians. “In this way the continuation of Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab -- Arab-Israeli conflicts, strengthen Iran’s strategic position.”

GREEN LIGHT: “We will continue to defend Israel’s right to defend itself and make its own judgments about what it needs to do to defend itself.”

“This administration sees and seeks a future of lasting peace and security in which Israeli children can leave behind the tyranny of rockets and terror; when Israeli mothers, as they send their children off to school, do not have to worry about whether or not they will come home; or Palestinian children have full opportunities to live out their dreams, and the entire Middle East does not have to live under the dread of a nuclear cloud.” You’ll notice that only Israeli children are the ones at risk of death from rockets and terror, while Palestinian children only seem to face socio-economic problems, not getting full opportunities to live out their dreams.

Speaking of living out their dreams, afterwards Biden and Obama went out for a burger at Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington. They went dutch. Obama looks like he’s never seen a hamburger before.

Of discernment, moldy Christian leaders of tomorrow, and lighting up crosses rather than blunts

A history teacher in Mission Viejo has been found guilty by a US District Court judge of violating the First Amendment by saying that Creationism is “religious, superstitious nonsense.” The judge wrote, “The court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement”.

The California state Supreme Court let stand a ruling that California Lutheran High School (motto: “Molding the Christian Leaders of Tomorrow”) is not subject to civil rights law and was perfectly within its rights to expel two (supposedly) lesbian girls.

Billmon notes and/or links to some of the dickishness of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, now top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, but leaves out one of the quotes that helped torpedo Sessions’s nomination by Reagan to district court, that he “used to think the Klan was all right until I learned they smoked marijuana.”

(Update: a WaPo article on Sessions mentions the comment, but for some reason only as “remarks Sessions made about the Ku Klux Klan.”)

Epitaph

I didn’t have anything nice to say about Arlen Specter just because he left the Republican Party, and I have nothing nice to say about Jack Kemp just because he’s dead. That is all.

Supreme

What I want as a replacement for David Souter: an actual, for God’s sake, criminal trial attorney. Someone who’s seen the inside of a court. Would be the first since Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991.