Why I have contempt for the Democrats
"In radio and TV appearances the final days of the campaign, Lieberman also frequently said that a Democratic majority of 60 votes, a filibuster-proof level, would be a bad thing."
And yet so many of you talk of that filibuster-proof Democratic majority as the ultimate prize.
Dream on as long as Lieberman is one of that '60.' At least the Republicans did not get on their hands and knees and grovel when Jim Jeffords bolted their Party in '01.
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On a related note, does anyone doubt that Mitch McConnell (Senate Minority leader) is going to wield far more power than Reid, nominal Majority Leader?
Feel free to express disagreement with me on this or any other point. I am looking forward to reading some imaginative defenses of Joe Lieberman and co.
November 27, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The only things that McConnell wields with authority are the
Official Abu Ghraib Interrogators' Model
Chemical Light Sticks Of GOP Enlightenment®
from his position of sales clerk behind the counter of The Senate Republican Committee's Closet Gift Store. He even needs the assistance of an Official Bush Man Date to have his prescribed one-chemstick-a-day properly inserted, using an authorized use of force. If he falls off of these meds, then his mind's eye once again becomes lost in the darkness it resides in.
The Vegas books have Mitch McConnell as the slight favorite, with Lindsey Gramham close in pursuit at his rear, on the line:
Next Federal Republican Politician Proven to Possess
a Personal Predilection to Peep in the Public Potties.
Even McConnell's marriage reeks of expediency.
Elaine Chou's Boy-toi, he ain't.
November 28, 2008 6:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate McConnell too, but Jesus! Homophobic much?
November 29, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
You seem to be in need of illumination for your mind's eye also.
From The General Taguba's Report On Treatment Of Abu Ghraib Prisoners In Iraq:
On May 11, 2004, After General Taguba had entered his report in testimony given during The Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the the treatment of Iraqi Prisoners, Senator James Inhofe stated for the record, and published in the Congressional Daily Records his analysis of the Investigative hearing, which included the following:
Care to discuss the essential elements necessary in the "clarity of statements" and "supporting evidence" to cause a US Army General investigating reports of human abuses by by US Army personnel in a foreign theatre of war which to conclude that rampant abuses had taken place and that they included acts of forceful sodomy with a chemical light, and perhaps a broomstick, or does you liberal thin skin and limp-wristedness preclude this?
The Republican Leadership has refused to honestly investigate the abuses of humans detained under the colour of authority imparted by The American flag. Often they have downplayed instances which have risen through the darkness into the public eye, claiming these were isolated acts perpetrated by lone-perverts. Right-sided pundits, like Hannity and Limbaugh have portrayed the abuses at Abu Ghraib as being nothing more than the kind of pranks found in college fraternity initiations (insert Greek week joke of choice here). They have claimed that Arabs sexual attitudes are much too sensitive. There has never been a true credible investigation into the breadth and scope of human abuses to detainees held in Mr. Bush's GWOT, in which the reports have been publicly published.
Neither have the indications that sexual degradation including sodomy used as interrogatory methodologies been limited to Abu Ghraib:
Republicans, who have defended human torture, who have engaged in parliamentary procedural chicanery to block investigations, who have downplayed the extent of the Bush Administration's travesties are not deserving of a grain of salt's worth of respect. They have not even a shred of personal honour, or a public reputation capable of being defamed. Senator McConnell, is a justifiable target of opportunity in his position as Senate Minority leader. You think I'm being 'homophobic"? Hardly! I'm being torturephobic. Not done by my country, in my name, nor under my flag. This Inhumane Behaviour As Official Governmental Policy Must Cease.
November 29, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sigh. You haven't told me anything I don't already know. Negative points for a faulty hypothesis, einstein.
December 2, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
More news on the 'contemptible Democrats' front:
'"You remember those memos, right?" MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked on Tuesday. "Part of the Bush administration's unofficial game plan to ... dismiss the Geneva Conventions and other laws by using the veneer of serious legal scholarship to create an illusion that these near-death interrogation tactics ... were somehow legal."
However, constitutional expert Jonathan Turley told Maddow, "I don't believe that anyone seriously believes in the administration that what they did was legal. This is not a close legal question. Waterboarding is torture. It has been defined as a war crime." Instead, Turley suggested that "what's really happening here is a rather clever move at this intersection of law and politics."
"They know that the people what want him to pardon our torture program is primarily the Democrats, it's not the Republicans," Turley explained. "The Democratic leadership would love to have a pardon so they could go to their supporters and say, 'Look, there's really nothing we could do. ... There really can't be any indictments now.'"
"The Bush administration is calling their bluff," stated Turley. "They know that the Democratic leadership will not allow criminal investigations or indictments."
"The question is the intestinal fortitude of the Democrats to stand with the rule of law," he continued. "Unfortunately, we have many people who campaign on principle but they govern on politics. And I think that we're seeing that with the balloon they're floating saying, 'Let's have a commission ... like the 9/11 Commission.' ... Everyone in Washington knows that commission's being proposed so that there would be no serious criminal investigation or prosecution."
"What would need to be done," asked Maddow, "in order to ensure that torture is clearly illegal in the United States?"
"This has always been a crime," replied Turley. "It's always been a war crime ... The question is not whether the act is immoral, but whether moral people will stand forward and say ... 'Let's investigate it, and if there's crimes here, let's prosecute.'"
However, Turley doesn't see much chance of that happening. He concluded scathingly, "The most successful democracy in history is just about to see war crimes, do nothing about it -- and that's an indictment not just of George Bush and his administration. It's an indictment of all of us if we walk away from a clear war crime and say it's time for another commission."'
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Turley_Democratic_leaders_want_pardons_for_1126.html
Anyone who disagrees with Turley, please do so.
I wager that the odds of Turley's being wrong are about as remote as William Kristol's ever being right.
November 27, 2008 6:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's typical Dubya. He suspects he will get away with it as he has never been held accoutnable in his whole life, and if the people who followed him see their careers dissolve in a flood of indignation, it would not cause him to lose any sleep.
That being said, I think the Dems will not pursue them. There is too much on their plate.
November 28, 2008 2:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just a quick aside, not intended as a 'defense' of anything:
Timing and priorities matter. We know where to find Sen. Lieberman. We know where to find the 'torture' culprits. It is neither possible nor inherently desirable to do everything at once, starting BEFORE one even takes office.
We'll have at least 4 years (8, Lord willing)to make a proper and just settlement on all outstanding accounts.
November 27, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Would you care to make a $100 wager on that? My bet is all the criminals get away with no punishment whatsoever.
November 28, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
TTS
That may well be. It's possible that that might actually BE 'justice' when all the facts are known, I just can't say for sure at this point.
I just think there will be a better time to prioritize these issues. Now is the time to start to repair the many structural problems we have TODAY.
November 29, 2008 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
And all the damn whining. Obama hasn't even taken office yet and some Dems are crying and puking all over themseleves because they disagree with some of his picks. There is nothing wrong with disliking some picks but some act like it is the end of the world. It's really pathetic.
November 27, 2008 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
My objections are all to the conduct of the Democratic Party itself, not with any of Obama's picks.
November 27, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama hasn't taken office. We don't yet know whether he'll act on the issue of torture, and if so in what way/s.
And yet you generalize against "the Democrats" -- of which Obama is one -- while incisistently claiming:
"My objections are all to the conduct of the Democratic Party itself, not with any of Obama's picks."
I'm a member of the Democratic Party. I've been blasting the lies -- and "euphemisms" -- intended to sell torture as debateable as to efficacy, without regard for it being always and everywhere illegal and a war crime. And I've been doing so consistently and constantly, without any euphemisms, since first report of it, PUBLICLY.
What have you done? Bashed even those who have both been memebers of the Democratic Party and speaking out AT THE SAME TIME.
And we know where you stand on the issue: a false "I told you so" arrogance "snark" which contributes nothing constructive; constributes only self-aggrandizement, and false GENERALIZATION as excusxe for EXCLUDING YOURSELF from being effective.
Go vote again for Nader: I'm sure it'll earn you high-fives and ego-strokings from the extreme, statistically-insignificant backs-to-the-world circle of friends who also vote Nader based upon the conviction that refusing to participate is somehow effective in doing something other than reinforcing your smug sense of righteousness.
In short: thank you for the insult to my intelligence and integrity by having mindlessly lumped me in with those you view as moral cowards, while you sit on the sidelines sniping -- and also doing NOTHING but rendering yourself both morally "pure" and irrelevant.
November 27, 2008 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait a minute? Please clarify. This guys is saying that Republicans WANT to go ahead and prosecute those in the Bush Administration who are guilty of war crimes even though that list should include Bush and Cheney. Please name the Republicans that want this. I'm serious, because I'm really confused.
November 27, 2008 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans don't think the actions were illegal, therefore, no pardons are necessary.
It is Democrats who clamor for justice and who say that torture is unequivocally wrong and unconstitutional- which, of course, it is.
Turley is pointing to the fact that a huge gap exists between Democratic voters and their politicians, in which Obama and Dems were elected on a mass tide of revulsion for the lies and wars Republicans have buried themselves and the country in- but that pelosi and co have no desire to actually fulfil their voters' wishes.
Pardons by definition put the pardoned beyond the reach of justice. Turley is saying this gives Dem leaders an easy excuse for doing nothing. While to some extent this is understandable- we all want the easy way out- it is also unpardonable, if you'll forgive the pun.
November 27, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The vast majority of contemporary conservatives are incapable of comprehending that forceful sodomy with a blunt instrument as an interrogatory methodology is an act of torture. To them it is instead an act of compassionate conservatism, and they view it with concomitant burning envy, which was aroused and subsequently arose from within the furthest recesses of their repressed subconsciousness. They would with great pleasure submit to being anally raped by Official Bush Man Dates, under National Security predicates. It would mean they'd get to have their cake and eat it too, claiming after the fact, their public revelations of gratification, was not in fact evidence of their profuse perversity, but was instead an a Divinely Inspired Testimony To True Patriotism.
November 28, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please shut up already. Rape is one of the spoils of war. Plenty of Iraqis (and others) have been raped since the U.S. occupation, and not just anally.
November 29, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes?
You are attempting to rationalise abuses by Americans military personnel using examples of abuses, both historical and contemporary, done by non-Americans? Was the maturation of your morality stunted at 8 years of age? "But mom, Ali does it too" is not a valid counter-argument.
It is however, a strong indication of just what the Bush Presidency has cost this nation. I am American, and hold my Country to a higher standard than I do the rest of the world. I also have a share of responsibilities for its actions. Instead of telling me to shut-up, why don't you move to a nation more in line with your world view? Singapore waits for you.
November 29, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ouch.
November 29, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
No ouch. He doesn't understand what I'm saying.
December 2, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even in war, laws (ie the Geneva Conventions) are supposed to apply.
December 3, 2008 7:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I know. But from all that I've read and video footage I've viewed over the last 5 years, the U.S. military and its contractors have not abided by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My point is that not just Iraqi men have been anally raped (as PseudoCyAnts seems to be obsessed with). My point is that Iraqi women have been raped by U.S. soldiers. My point is that American soldiers have been raped by U.S. soldiers. Etc.
My point is that Mitch McConnell's and Lindsey Graham's sexual preferences have absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. military's well-documented misconduct and criminal behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan. To equate sexual torture and homosexuality, however, as PseudoCyAnts does, is homophobic and grotesque. He's not remotely funny or clever or insightful or justified.
My comments do not advocate war and never will. I'm a pacifist. I was opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because (surprise!) raping the enemy occurs in every war, including the wars Americans wage. To think it doesn't or won't happen is a denial of what war is.
At the end of the day, Democrats are as much to blame as Republicans for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo/Camp Delta, Fallujah, and elsewhere. The sexual orientation of politicians in Congress has nothing to do with it.
December 3, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that graham's orientation is meaningless to me, as is that of his presumably straight counterpart, Joe lieberman.
I think PCA is fixated on mconnell because he believes McConnell is a sadist. He may be; I don't think Graham or Lieberman are.
Sadism is relevant to the discussion, certainly.
December 3, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rumor has it that McConnell, like Graham, is also deep in the closet.
So, after calling McConnell the "sales clerk behind the counter of The Senate Republican Committee's Closet Gift Store," which sells the "Official Abu Ghraib Interrogators' Model Chemical Light Sticks Of GOP Enlightenment," PseudoCyAnts says:
In other words, McConnell's (presumed, not yet proved) predilection for anal sex with men makes him chief cheerleader for a U.S. policy of anally raping Iraqi prisoners.
Only a homophobe can make such a bullshit equation, and PseudoCyAnts makes it repeatedly in this thread.
Sorry, but a preference for homosexual sex does not equal a preference for sadism. Whether McConnell is gay or straight has nothing whatsoever to do with the torture of Iraqi prisoners by the U.S. military.
PseudoCyAnts is turning his own homophobia into an argument that closeted Republicans (namely McConnell) are sadists because they are repressed homosexuals. That's PseudoCychoBabble.
December 6, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your attention to this topic. McConnell's sexual orientation is not a matter of concern to me. Nor is Graham's or Lieberman's for that matter.
Unless I had evidence that McConnell himself was responsible for sadistic actions, I would never bring this subject up in connection with him.
I did characterize him as 'reptilian' in another thread. This was in reference to his describing Obama's admirable criterion for a Supreme court justice, 'emapthy,' as 'unorthodox.'
It is unfortunate that sexual orientation enters this kind of discourse at all, since it is irrelevant.
December 7, 2008 9:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is Democrats who clamor for justice and who say that torture is unequivocally wrong and unconstitutional- which, of course, it is.
_____
You might improve your effort to communicate your "point" -- if you have one -- if you didn't begin from an either/or basis, were to think trhough to whatever your conclusion, and even did some rewriting so as to correct errors in your thinking/statement.
Pelosi and Reid are members of the Democratic Party. I am a member of the Democratic Party. Bashing the Democratic Party as being against acting on the issue, and thus accusing the Democratic Party of essentially aquiescing in and defending the war crime of torture as committed by the Bushit criminal enterprise, is not a reasoned line, and is not going to persuade many in the Democratic Party to agree with you.
Keep voting for Nader so that (1) nothing changes, but you can then (2) wash your hands of that which you exclude yourself from effecting/changing.
November 27, 2008 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well the problem is not lack of clarity.
The problem is overstatement.
A lack of patience, a lack of attention to detail. This has always been my problem.
November 27, 2008 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you have contempt for Democrats. I have contempt for Republicans? Know why? They are big mothed, egotistical, bigoted, racists people full of hatred, stupidity and hawkishness! Tey are too full of themselves and shallow a nd narrow-minded. You have to think and look like them to be accepted, if you do not agree and look like them, you are not to be istened to or though of. The only opinion that is right is there's, everybody elses is wrong. This is why I hate the Republicans. I could go on but I have low BP and I want it to remain that way
November 28, 2008 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I won't defend them per se, but I will say that they govern in a way that is representative of the people they govern. The masses are asses, and the masses elect leaders, not the rational minority.
Prosecution would take years, and although you and I and everyone on this site know that it would really only take a fraction of there focus it would be the medias only focus. Then in four years we would all be watching in disbelief and horror as the election unfolds with the masses believing that those damned Democrats accomplished nothing except a 4 year witch hunt. Doesn't even matter if the storyline is true. As long as it sells add space.
It's easy being the republican, they are always given the benefit of the doubt. Look at just how badly McCain had to screw up to lose by 53-47. That's the benefit of the doubt right there. It's easy to govern in the manner that the Republicans do when you can govern as if you don't give a rats ass about the people and still get re-elected.
November 28, 2008 2:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"It's easy being the republican, they are always given the benefit of the doubt. Look at just how badly McCain had to screw up to lose by 53-47."
This is true- it seemed to me that McCain wasn't even trying, that he was deliberately making himself unelectable, and yet he still avoided a wipeout of McGovern proportions.
Why Republicans are given the benefit of the doubt, when they have literally done nothing to deserve this for the last fifty (or so) years- this is a good question.
November 28, 2008 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. You are generalizing... See Wexler and Kucinich as reference.
November 28, 2008 2:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wexler and Kucinich are two of the best Reps in Congress. But it often seems as though Kucinich for his common sense by Dems...
November 28, 2008 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink