September 17, 2006
Screw you guys, I’m goin’ home
These days the level of political discourse emanating from the White House is at about a third or fourth grade level. Faced with the possibility that his Republican Congress is not going to approve his proposals to retreat from the Geneva Conventions and run shadow trials for captive terrorists, Our Fine President turned into Eric Cartman and said if we don’t play his way, he’ll take his ball and go home and then no one gets to play.
“The bottom line is simple: If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules — if they do not do that — the program’s not going forward.”
“They’re not going forward with the program. They’re professionals — will not step up unless there’s clarity in the law.
So Congress has got a decision to make. You want the program to go forward or not? I strongly recommend that this program go forward in order for us to be able to protect America.”
“We can debate this issue all we want, but the practical matter is, if our professionals don’t have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to go forward.”
“The House will be working on a bill next week; the Senate will be. Hopefully we can reconcile differences. Hopefully that we can come together and find a way forward, without ruining the program.”
Those are all statements he made when questioned by the media about the resistance his detainee and domestic spying bills are facing in Congress. Members of both parties are voicing objections to the Our Fine President’s proposal to allow CIA agents to torture detainees and then convict them in trials where they never get to hear the evidence that may put them to death. They also think he’s going too far in his plan to legalize his avoision of the FISA Court while spying on suspected terrorists.
In both cases, the response is that if he doesn’t get the bills exactly as he wants them to codify his previous actions which have been struck down by the courts, he will be left with no choice but to stop trying to find terrorists because if there’s any oversight of our efforts we’ll have no chance of succeeding. And then if we do capture somehow capture someone, there wont be any point in questioning them because without torture we wont get any lifesaving information.
According to Our Fine President, if he can’t have things exactly as he wants them, there’s just no point in fighting this war on terror. He knows what he needs because he’s been using these tactics for five years now and they’ve been a great success haven’t they?
Of course they have, and Our Fine President just can’t imagine a world any other way. When asked about whether or not support for torture tactics and blind trials we’re losing us the moral high ground in the war on terror, he simply denied that this could in any way be a reality.
“If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. It’s just — I simply can’t accept that.
It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.”
Sorry to tell you this Mr. President, but innocent women and children have died in Iraq as a means of achieving whatever murky objective you’ve got over there. If we can’t compare our tactics to the enemy’s and clearly see our moral superiority we’ve already lost this battle for the future of civilization as I think you once put it.
word.
We can’t honestly be suprised by any of this, can we? OK, maybe the part where this administration admitted that we’re doing all the things we condem the other world governments for doing, like secret detentions, closed-door trials, and torture - the part where this administration admitted to that is a bit suprising. Then again, when considered in the context of the arrogance and contempt for the public IQ they’ve displayed, it’s pretty much par for the course.
But using flawed logic to support a continued program of inequality and rushed judgement can’t be considered new… it’s just the evolution of the “gay marriage” issue that will miraculously be ressurected just in time for the November elections. After all, this is the first administration since the Civil Rights movement conculded to publicly advocate for making any subset of our non-incarcerated populace less than equal in the eyes of the law. If this administration has no qualms about politicizing the rights of a participating and productive segment of our nation, of course they’ll tell you that the alleged fanatical enemy of our freedoms is less that human and not worthy of basic human rights.