June 18, 2005
Damn You Dandy Dick Durban, Damn You!
There are few things in life more maddning than an itch you can't scratch, a mild case of nausea when setting down to Thanksgiving dinner with beloved friends and dear family and a politician who isn't aware of the impact of his words. Specifically these words:
"The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.Republicans and conservatives rose up and demanded a retraction or an apology. Which of course, Dandy Dick Durban refused. When asked to apologize, Dandy Dick had this to say:If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."
"This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure."Liberals, leftists and other assorted supporters of the politics of hate stood shoulder to shoulder and defended Dandy Dick for telling the truth. When defending Dandy Dick they noted that he didn't say what everyone with two cents worth of brains knows he said. In fact, if Dandy Dan didn't say what he obviously did say, why is Dandy Dick apologizing now?
From Dick Durban's website:
“More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country’s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face.â€ÂSo, what is he "regreting?"“I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration.â€Â
“I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.â€Â
Dandy Dick (or from the apology perhaps that ought to be Dandy Dickless - if my readers will forgive the phrase) carries on the tradition in politics of making the most outreageous statements and having them become the mantra of the left. Need proof? John Conyers holds a mock hearing to indict Bush and impeach him. Shades of Bertrand Russell. Teddy Kennedy and the ilk that follow this 'liberal' jump into the fray at times too.
I guess we really can't blame Dandy Dick for his comments, he has the Democratic Underground at his ear wispering ravings. MoveOn.org is in on the conspiracy of hate as well.
The politics used by Dandy Dick are nothing new. The Democratic Party is attempting to mimic (poorly at that) the backbench tactics of Newt Gingrich in the early 90's that led to the Republican Revolution of '94. What they are overlooking (or perhaps too stupid to understand) is that not only did Gingrich and company attack the leftist line, but they offered America a plan, one not fully realized over the last decade, but a plan none-the-less. This was called the Contract with America, and that is something the Democrats can't do, offer new ideas because they haven't any.
The blogosphere is alive with condemnation of Dandy Dick; political cartoon after political cartoon blasts and/or carricatures Dandy Dick. Blogs rip him apart with a delicious frequency. Cao's Blog (prounounced Key's Blog) shreds the 'good' Senator. American Warmonger has a post noting that Dandy Dick is bad for America. Flight Pundit scores one on Dandy Dick's pointy little head. In all, Richard J. Durbin (AKA Dandy Dick) (D. Ill.) has done two things. One, he has proven that the Democratic Leadership (he is number two in the dem senate) has no ideas other than hate and obstructionism and two, he has energized American's who know bull crap when they hear it. I wonder if Illinois will send him back to the Senate, I hope not!
So Dandy Dick, my hat is off to you, you make my job so easy.
Update: In my haste to get this up, I neglected to include The Mary Hunter's exhaustive fisking and link-fest up at TMH's Baconbits. In my defense, I claim that Woody distracted me with Morris the Flying Cat.
Posted by GM Roper at June 18, 2005 09:14 AM | TrackBackWhere exactly, from this corporate liberal rep is there 'hate' expressed' in his argument? hate for what? whom? And why is it ok for Republicans to make far more ludicrous use of the German 3rd reich analogy and not Durbin? What if he'd used Mussolini's torture chambers as a comparison? Or Suharto's US sponsored and trained torture chambers? Would that be hateful also?
I think of Santorum's recent and far whackier use of the analogy and wonder if you're not merely being opportunistic in your rage? Or even whackier, Grover Nordquist's ideas about the Estate Tax being comparable to the Holocaust?
Posted by steve at June 18, 2005 09:20 AM
Steve, the "hate" is evident, sorry someone of your education is having difficulty finding it.
As for Norquist, he is a jerk, has always been a jerk, and will always be a jerk.
However, to answer your overall question, since this is my blog, since I get to pick on anyone I want, I choose Norquist.
Who knows, next I may pick on sociology professors. ;-)
Posted by GM Roper at June 18, 2005 10:51 AM
And we can count on those who run in the door shouting, "..but we supported Franco, Rhee and Park, Suharto, the Greek colonels, the "Gearwheel" guys on Taiwan, Ky and Thieu, the Shah of Iran and list goes on and on." Yep, they're right. We gave from a little to lots of aid and support to platoons of mildly awful to very awful folks. It is true. Why?
Please to recall, we also gave massive aid and support to Stalin.
Again, the question is why? How do we pick our allies? Who do we choose to have diplomatic relations with? Why? Should we select only those countries that have Jeffersonian democracy as their form of government? Heck, I am not so sure that WE could even qualify ourselves. Does America and do individual Americans always live up to the letter and the spirit of our laws and those moral teachings that we say we admire and hold as our beliefs? I don't think so.
If we do not like the way a country is being governed, what should be our tack? Shut down our Embassy? Actively support opponents of the government? Invade? Do we have to determine just how awful the government is? Where is the line in terms of "awfuldom"? Or, is there a possibility of nudging them towards more fairness and justice vice taking a harder line?
I do hope most would recall that our former president from Plains, GA, adopted the policy of having less and less to do with countries who had authoritarian (read: mildly bad to really bad) governments. What did that do for us? Mostly, the citizens of those countries rallied around their formerly hated governments.
This, of course, is about psychology. We may hate Dad, but he's our Dad and no one better come in and attack him. Possibly a bad example, but I hope the reader will know what I mean.
The hilarity of Carter's presidency compared with his conduct in the past few decades is that he has almost reversed himself and now does the grip and grin with all sorts of really awful people AND says very nice things about them. Go figure.
So, the world is a very big place. What is America's role in it? If we give aid to countries and they either mismanage it or stuff it into bank accounts of the corrupt leaders, whose fault is that? How much "oversight" can we have without offending the citizens of the countries involved? Do we have enough money to attempt to change all the bad things (according to our lights) going on in the world? Even if we did, could we (should we) attempt to make over all those countries?
Crikey, France (you remember them?) has one of the toughest (read: physical force) police forces in the world. If one looked closely at how they administer justice, I suspect many Liberals (American Liberals) would be aghast.
I rather believe that the study of world/foreign affairs requires a pretty extensive amount of study. One cannot do the "bumper sticker" approach is comparing proverbial apples and oranges.
Finally, for those of you who are good fathers, Happy Father's Day on the morrow.
Posted by tad at June 18, 2005 12:00 PM
I have just figured out the PERFECT solution to the Gitmo deal. Sling all the detainees over the fence into Cuba. There is so much to recommend this plan.
1. For all who think that Castro is as close to Santa Claus as they'll every really get, hey, no problem, right? Life in the perfect socialist people's one party republic of Castroland ought be jolly.
2. For the rest of us unbelievers and malcontents, this would be (albeit a bit late) payback for the Mariel Boat deal.
Who would complain? The Left? Why? The Right? Why?
OK, OK. Here's my fallback position. The Bush (hiterlite, gulagish, Pol Potist regime that they are - just ask Senator Dilbert, uh, I do have the name spelled correctly, yes?) "regime" can offer selected good citizens to sponsor detainees in Gitmo to live in their homes and be treated so much more humanely. The nominees are (drumroll):
Barbara Streisand
Alec Baldwin
(list the rest of their pals)
Congressman Conyers
Congresswoman Polosi
(list all their pals)
I remain the very humble and PTSD (not certified by any medical/psych authority and thus don't collect any of your tax dollars....and, you're welcome) wacko Idea Man.
Well, folks, that is my slightly warped attempt at humor.
Posted by tad at June 18, 2005 12:48 PM
So, GM, if we link a round-up to a round-up, do we end up making feedback? I couldn't think of many better reasons to cause a disturbance, though... thanks for the 'toons, thoughts, and linkie luv. I done sent you some back. (I completely understand why Morris distracted you, I nearly wet my pants when I watched that!) (and, I'm a cat lover to boot)
This guy Durbin too will pass... if not like bad gas, then politically, because he's helping the GOP so much. Sort of a Howard Dean who's actually answerable to some voters, eh?
Posted by The MaryHunter at June 18, 2005 01:02 PM
"Steve, the "hate" is evident, sorry someone of your education is having difficulty finding it."
No, really it's not. It's a disappointment with the type of tactics being employed and a statement as such. Hatred is not part of it, if it were you'd provide some evidence for why Durbin is 'hateful' and Nordquist is just 'a jerk'.
Tad, the US never supported Stalin. The US did support Suharto, Marcos, Rios Montt, Pinochet, the Bothas,...and was quite explicit about its strong support for their style of rule, especially their use of torture that far exceeded anything that Castro has used against his opponents on his worst day.
Posted by steve at June 18, 2005 02:18 PM
Steve,
Re: America's support for Stalin. Think the Murmansk Run over the North Cape. Certainly one of the most dangerous sea convoy operations in the War (WW II). Think all those Studebaker military trucks...just to name one thing. Yep, for our own reasons we did support Stalin...for a while, as we have supported others for greater or lesser periods of time. We supported the French in Indochina and later in Algeria. We now support the Egyptian government. We supported Israel AND Arafat at the same time. Why? Are there reasons or are we doing things with no reason?
Posted by tad at June 18, 2005 04:01 PM
Opportunism plain and simple to answer your last question. But to the more important point of support, no the US never supported Arafat more than Israel, that's a whacky belief it that is what you're putting forth. Zero in the way of evidence for that one. However, the US did finally accept negotiations with Arafat when its rejectionist position no longer worked in the face of the success of the first intifada, yes that is true.
Support for Stalin was non-existent as well. Indeed it was minimized as much as possible until the strategy of letting Russia be picked apart by the Germans no longer worked to the interests of US foreign policy. A funny kind of 'support' there. Support is our long term commitment to regimes like Suharto or Marcos or Montt, etc. That is the stuff of real support and commitment.
How the US support for the French in Indochina or Algeria proves your point I miss entirely, unless you're trying to tell me that is another sign of support for an enemy power? Yeah, sure. Some enemy.
Posted by steve at June 18, 2005 05:32 PM
Steve,
I find it pretty difficult following your positions. I didn't say "more" in terms of Arafat. We do support Mubarak. We did give Arafat money (millions), though - as you point out - it wasn't nearly what we've given Israel. The point here, is that doesn't that, at least on a quick glance, to appear rather schizophrenic? Why support both sides in a deadly dance? Were there no reasons?
You seem to take no sides and I find little support for anyone. Maybe I am failing to read and understand your message. If that is so, I regret it. On the other hand, maybe if you put your pros and cons out there for us (well, me), then things might be a bit clearer.
No rancor here, just a request.
Posted by tad at June 18, 2005 08:15 PM
Goodness no, it appears to be rather consistent. The support for the dictator of Egypt was far stronger than for Arafat [albeit he at least was elected under conditions that everyone agreed were real?]. What I believe is unsubstantiated is the idea that one can seriously talk about support in some instances where there plainly is little of it in existence and compare it to real support where it is very much very real and empirically demnostrable.
Posted by steve at June 18, 2005 09:05 PM
Your are coming in weak and garbled. Say all again after "Fire Mission", Over.
Posted by tad at June 18, 2005 10:08 PM
Not weak and garbled at all, rather clear I believe. Your claims of 'support' are what seems rather without any serious empirical evidence when history is looked at in a comparative fashion. In absolute terms you're correct, unquestionably. Unfortunately that tells us little substantively.
Posted by steve at June 19, 2005 05:31 AM
Steve, As I am man of apparently much less intellectual attainment than yourself, might you explain just what your last message means in language that a sixth grader could understand. Note: I must give credit to the screen writers and to Denzel Washington who said words to the above effect in the movie "Philadelphia".
Posted by tad at June 21, 2005 07:31 AM
