Well put my friend, well put. I really love that quoted paragraph as well.

We should just ignore this kind of stuff. They are merely trying to distract the president. Durbin, Dean, Pelosi, Reid need not be answered.

When they say something totally off the wall and a reporter asks a question about it, we say something like, it's too absurd for comment and that's the end of it, but no that's too easy. We engage them, start justifying, explaining, etc. and they get just what they want. A week or more headlines and sound bites.

Just ignore them and they'll soon stop.

We should just ignore this kind of stuff. They are merely trying to distract the president. Durbin, Dean, Pelosi, Reid need not be answered.

When they say something totally off the wall, when a reporter asks a question about it, we say something like, it's too absurd for comment and that's the end of it, but no that's too easy. We engage them, start justifying, explaining, etc. and they get just what they want. A week or more headlines and sound bites.

Just ignore them and they'll soon stop.

way to cut to the quick of it.

Someone should start a group akin to Swift Vote Veterans for truth but instead depict examples of torture in their commercials, "Real Torture Victims for Truth" Too bad the content as seen on Rusty Shackleford's site may be too graphic.
I have hope for the rest of America seeing through this bull, but Europe, which collectively doesnt support even the death penalty, wont change their opinion of us anytime soon.

Is anyone else out there missing Ari Fleisher badly? anyone?

Since when did ever care what Europe thinks?

The main thing is the more the tin foil hats spout their junk, the less effect they'll have in the future. Howard Dean at the head of the ship? No wonder the Dems are in a tailspin.

They had better get their stuff together or they might blow the next Presidential contest too....

One of the things that bugs me about this whole torture business is the commonly accepted "wisdom" that if you descend to the level of your enemy, then you have lost. In the book _civlization and its enemies_, Lee Harris seems to argue that in fact if you are fighting the ruthless, you must be ruthless yourself.

It seems to me that the west does a decent job of taking off the gloves and going medievil without ever losing its essential liberal character. I mean, hell, in WW2 we incinerated entire cities. What did we do when it was over? I Love Lucy and Timothy Leary.

I, too, oppose the idea of torture in general, but I am worried that in doing so I am too squeamish and that I, too, do not yet realize what it is going to take to destroy this enemy of civilization.

The day we cannot presume to insult the enemy that is trying to kill us, however, is the day we may as well surrender. This Koran abuse scandal is all stuff and nonsense.

doug

I love the fact Dickie Durbin has ignited the blogosphere!

I lovew it because it still speaks to the fact the Demos DO NOT understand the blogs and their "Power of the Non-Dark Side".

This idiot feels his pandering to the minimalist ultra-liberals is going to "gain" his party some votes.....NO!!!!!

All he gets from this is a warm fuzzy feeling, much like that of a person whose leg is pissed upon....

I, personally, find Dick Durbin to be a great supporter....and ally for the GOP point....

Go Dick...impale thyself!

Duke of DeLand

--They'll be rewarded for it again and again, every other November.---

And that's what I'm afraid of, they'll win.

Dean saying it is 1 thing, but in the Senate for the record?

I am sick and tired of only pubbies taking the fall.

Stephen, you're right. Furthermore, Durbin & Dean (a.k.a. dumb & dumber) are the best gift that the left dems could give to everyone else.
But I do think that the clown should be called out for this type of outrageous lying, even though he was mearly pandering to his left wing.
If Bush or any republican did a similarly stupid thing, the MSM would be making certain that it crammed it down the throat of every American, repeatedly. A lie repeated enough becomes the truth, or so the MSM operates.

Yes, Durbin's an idiot, his drivel shouldn't be taken seriously, but unfortunately, he's a US senator and he has a pulpit from which to rant and a compliant MSM to aid or cover for him. Because he is a US senator, he is taken seriously and therefore should be held to a high standard. This type of rant should always be discouraged.

Oops I mean Will! Sorry sbout that.

"All right! Poke him with the soft cushions!!"

{Poke, poke}

"Doesn't seem to be hurting him, lord."

"Have you got all the stuffing at one end?"

"Yes, lord!"

"He must be made of stronger stuff..."

I'm not a Democrat, so it isn't my call, but Durdin really should be forced out of his leadership position in the Senate over this. I'm not the first to compare the non-reaction to his outrageous statements with the one that cost Trent Lott his job a few years back (also outrageous), but the comparison seems valid to me.

Then again, the party of Jim McDermott, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Cynthia McKinney, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Barbra Boxer, Barbra Lee et al. would probably just install someone equally foul to replace him. Sometimes I wonder why I stay a Republicen despite their many screw ups. Guys like Durbin remind me.

The only thing that worries me about these idiots is what our soldiers think in Iraq and Afghanistan about support from back home. I don't want them to think the recent polls and this garbage is how we feel. But unfortunately - they get the MSM like we do - and they don't have time to read many blogs to see the other side of it. I think many of our soldiers in Iraq suffering 130 degree heat WITHOUT air conditioning - might want to switch places with the terrorists at Gitmo. Well, air conditioning and chicken ala fidel.

Sean,

Sometimes I wonder why I stay a Republicen despite their many screw ups. Guys like Durbin remind me.

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

It is positively sickening that these kind of people are in the Senate...THE SENATE!! Is this the best a Democracy can produce? I fear the dolphins will soon be saying "goodbye and thanks for all the fish".

Hey, folks, how about responding to what Durbin specifically said?

If you had been told of people being chained hand and
foot to the floor for 24 hours at a time in very hot
or very cold rooms while urinating and defecating on
themselves, and were not told which country was
holding people captive in this condition, who would
you guess is the regime holding such people captive?
Would you have thought to yourself, "yep, that's
sounds like the U.S., 'cause that's the way we do
things around here" ?

Is there some rule of rhetoric I'm not aware of that says that absolutely any statement of the form "Blah blah blah blah Guantanamo blah blah blah blah Nazis" is by necessity a claim that what's going on at Guantanamo is tantamount to the Holocaust?

By the way, I agree that Amnesty was wrong to call Guantanamo "the gulag of our time". Durbin did not make a comparable statement, though. He just suggested the following thought experiment: "Imagine a guy chained to the floor in a hot room for a day, shitting himself. Now, guess who's holding him captive?"

I do agree it was probably unwise of Durbin to bring up the Nazis, Soviets, and Pol Pot, because people understandably have very emotional reactions whenever such names are mentioned and seem to lose the ability to parse the actual sentence in which utterances of such names occur.

Yes, yes, Foo Bar.

Dick Durbin merely mentioned Nazi death camps, Soviet gulags, Cambodian death camps and Gitmo in the same sentence for the heck of it. Completely unrelated, somehow.

Meanwhile I'm upset about the fact that the Left has become so ineffectual. As a libertarian, pro-capitalist I'm looking for the serious Left to keep the Right in line. Otherwise the Right will go just as far (and just as wrong) as the Left did in the 1960's. One party rule really is a problem.

I'm not advocating any votes for the modern Democratic party. I would like to see the Democratic Party to find some JFK's out there, however. For goodness sake where are those who are willing to make any sacrifice for their country as JFK intoned at his inaugaral?

Anywho... Count me a dreamer but can we fast forward through the death throes of the Left so the Right won't have a chance to screw the pooch? Please?

Problem is that his Bush hating has spilled over into a form that hurts the country and the military.

I know this has been a common occurance on the the left, but what gets me is that I don't think Durbin is an idiot or retarded mentally. He had to know that his words would be used by America's enemies for propaganda, especially considering that he has seen Amnesty International's words used that way. He's seen the anti-war movements words used that way.

So even if his capacity for logic had failed him he knew that his words would become enemy propaganda.

Kalroy

I disagree with you, Will. You may think it's all just political posturing, but I'm over here in Al Anbar Province, Iraq and every stupid statement like this from such a high level of our government is a direct threat to my life. Statements like this are used to recruit people to kill me. I take it very personally.

"Air conditioning changes, intimidation, sleep deprivation and having your personal space invaded by a woman?"

Here in the decadent west we call that "marriage."

Am I entitled to some kind of compensation here, or should I just quit while I'm behind?

Oh yeah, and she snores like my dad or any given dockworker...

i agree we should not get worked up about Durbin's foolishness. However, such foolishness should not be ignored. Such words have consequences if history is a guide. Such lack of rationality must be questioned and called to account, or such foolishness may mutate into a more henious form.

Will,

I posted on this too. It is tempting to ignore this because Durbin has always been a "party Hack". The problem is, he is now so much more. He is a high ranking U.S. official, and his statements have impact around the world. Al Jezzera had a long article quoting him and discussing treatement of detainees. It was not complimentary.

Further, as I point out on my site, Durbin in December was the subject of a criminal referral to Justice, for blabbing to the press about a black ops satellite system. This cannot continue. Durbin continues to act like a hack, but just because he will not hold himself to a higher standard, does not mean that we shouldn't.

Many of you miss the point. 90% of the folks I work with have no idea that Dick Turbin said anything. If blogs don't rachet up the pain on this sad excuse for human tissue, he'll get away with it.

Only a determined campaign ala Memogate will get the MSM to start reporting exactly what was said. This would negate Reid and Trubin's excuses re: context, understanding, etc.

Americans should be demanding resignation or, at a minimum, formal censure for seditious speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I donated $100 online to a Republican in Minnesota for his 2006 Senate campaign in protest of Durbin's comment and emailed the receipt to several Democrat Senators, explaining why. [Hugh Hewitt had the idea and link.]

In the process I got into email tag with a hired consultant to the Virginia Democrat Party. His whole take on it was academic like in some college debate. He thinks security is counter to ideals of freedom and liberty. I told him that there can be no freedom or liberty without security first.

I think I stumbled onto a reason why some Democrats are so stupid: they didn't learn to think in college — they just memorized the 1968 thinking of leftist professors.

As long as Democrats pay for this kind of advice, they're way out of tune with anybody who lives in the real world.

Durbin crossed the line here. What he did was not just partisan, it was unpatriotic. I hope the unpatriotic tag sticks to Democrats over this.

I wish there was a thinking Democrat out there. We really do need a two-party system.

Dick is the Dem's #2 man in the Senate. His ant-American comments are both significant and important. They show that Zell Miller was right. Today's Democratic Party would like to see America destroyed. This passion is not limited to progressives like Boxer, Dr. Dean and M. Moore; but is shared by all Democratic leaders.

The point is, that stuff IS coming out of the mouths of party hacks now. We can no longer entertain the comfortable self-deceit that it is the voice of the "fringe" of the party... it IS the party.

Which is why, after thiry years as Democrat, I now quit.

For those that need more proof that America haters took over the Democratic party 13 years ago I present their #2 man in the Senate.

Sorry, I have not read all the comments so this may be a repeat.

Honestly, Durbin has become the de facto spokesman for the Al Queda. How can he in good conscience be a senator from Illinois and an agent for the enemies of the United States?

People will die because of his words. Shouldn’t he have to pay in some small way for that?

The comments from the soldier underscore why we must get worked up about this kind of stuff. A US Senator must behave more responsibly than Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin. Words have consequences. No, his feet should be held to the fire until he screams "uncle." His nonapology apology is not good enough.

"... but Europe, which collectively doesnt support even the death penalty, ..."
For what it's worth, whenever I have noticed anyone bothering to run a poll in England, it always comes out in favour of the death penalty.
All part of the general theory that the people of Europe and the US aren't so different, it's just that the US system does a better job of representing what its people actually want.
Or maybe I'm an optimist ...

All these Democrats who are so outraged about torture--where were they when Saddam was still in power and sending people through woodchippers--alive?

I don't seem to remember any of them caring especially then.

"If you had been told of people being chained hand and
foot to the floor for 24 hours at a time in very hot
or very cold rooms while urinating and defecating on
themselves, and were not told which country was
holding people captive in this condition, who would
you guess is the regime holding such people captive?
Would you have thought to yourself, "yep, that's
sounds like the U.S., 'cause that's the way we do
things around here" ?"

No, I would not identify the country as the US because any Western country is capable of doing those things, and there are a lot of Western countries.

Non-Western countries are less likely to use tactics which are obvious attempts to apply pressure without causing physical pain.

I'm in total agreement with Mike Rentner. What Durbin's statement does is recruit people to kill our soldiers.

It is absurd to consider Durbin's statement as no big deal. Aiding the enemy in a time of war is a very big deal, Durbin is a traitor. But, because American's have become so tolerant and bored of traitors, people like Durbin will be allowed free pass in the distruction of our country.

We The People are performing a shitty job of protecting the Constitution of the United States.

That said, thank God for our soldiers who understand all too well the meaning of defending the Consitution and understand the harm brought by traitors.

Believing things will change for these traitors every other November is silly, these traitors will dig up dead voters in order to stay in power.

As far as two party system and all that, I'd certainly entertain a Libertarian Party should they ever grow any sort of balls and make serious commitments to something other than satisfying self. Easy to feel superior when playing both sides.

Durbin isn't the problem; the braindead voters who put him in office are.

Same goes for Sean P.'s list of Jim McDermott, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Cynthia McKinney, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Barbra Boxer, Barbra Lee et al.

He is, after all, their ELECTED representative.

maor hit the nail on the head: it doesn't sound all that unlike any prison in the western world.

wires to the gonads? no
beating with wire? no
being placed in a flooded cell with water up to your neck for days? no

it's mild discomfort. do handcuffs sting? hell yeah. can you bruise, abrade, cut and possibly even break your hands/wrists with them? yeah. do we call it torture when you cuff someone? uh no.

as for the other stuff: we should be leveraging every psychological method to screw with these guys. psychological torture is effective, and is why the left opposes it. it also goes to show you how deeply, deeply screwed up these guys are when invasion of personal space by a female is tortuous. I can drop a few hundred having my space invaded by scantily (if that) clad
lady(ies) and have one hell of a time. i guess i wouldn't enjoy it all that much if they had bad BO and were of rosie o'donnelesque proportions, but get some freaking gonads. these guys want 72 virgins in heaven and will blow themselves up to do it, but can't deal with a live woman in front of them?

give them the real geneva treatment: extract information and then execute them out of hand as spies.

So Durbin hates America and wants it to fail? Honestly, I'm no big fan of Durbin, but...

Consider another possible explanation: Durbin thinks that mistreatment of prisoners is unethical and beneath the morals of the United States of America. As one of the highest leaders in the United States government, he correctly feels it is his place to voice that opinion, because he thinks we should change our policy.

Such mistreatment (I won't call it torture either, because I agree it is not) substantially lowers the bar for acceptable behavior in the world, and puts our own captured troops and civilians (now and for the foreseeable future) in much greater peril. But of course, mistreating these prisoners is worth it because... um, we are getting a great deal of real actionable intelligence from these prisoners that is making America safer?

I think a big part of what this comes down to is: Would you compromise the values of the United States, in order to make it a safer place? To answer that, we need to case-by-case weigh how much we compromise what we stand for, against how much safer those compromises make us.

To me, a country that I can be proud of, that does what is right, and that acts under rule of law, is more desirable even if that means things are slightly less safe. (And I do think the added safety that results from this mistreatment is trivial). I don't think that making mistreatment of all prisoners everywhere now "acceptable" is worth whatever paltry intelligence we have gotten from such mistreatment. And one of my biggest concerns is that we have set a precident now that is ripe for increasing levels of abuse.

I do think it makes America a worse and lower place that we are behaving that way, European or other world opinions be damned. It's just wrong.

So, Counterpoint, when are you running for Senate?

Two concerns.

Durbin makes no allowance in his statements for how these statements will be misused by our enemies. Dems in general, and particularly the left, whom we rely upon as our watchdog on such matters, need to do a much better job of reassuring the rest of us that we are all on the same side. The best way to do this is first, deciding to actually be on the same side, and second, to acknowledge the concerns of fellow Americans.

The shock value for attention strategy that now seems in vogue across the left may be efective in the short run, but in the medium to long, you just end up looking clueless about the history/facts involved.

"Consider another possible explanation: Durbin thinks that mistreatment of prisoners is unethical and beneath the morals of the United States of America."

This may be true, but it doesn't explain the Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot comparison. I think the best explanation is that he is dumb. This does not contradict or support the idea that he thinks that "mistreatment of prisoners is unethical and beneath the morals of the United States of America."

I'm curious how many of the posters here have actually called, emailed or written Sen. Durbin's office to express their anger? When I posted on this, that's the very action I urged/took myself ~ his Senate email still allows someone not from his district to comment. (Granted, it also asks you to understand his consituents come first.) Even if it never gets read, the volume alone can send a message. And I felt better for the politely worded rant. If all you've done is moan on blogs, do something radical ~ cut and paste your opinion and send it to him. I mean, you were online anyway, right?
And a Hiya! ~ to Mike Rentner, United States Marine Corps.

Counterpoint, appreciate the evenhanded tone of your post, and the politeness of your dissent. Rational discourse, well done. However:

"I don't think that making mistreatment of all prisoners everywhere now "acceptable" is worth whatever paltry intelligence we have gotten from such mistreatment."

Don't know if any of us can say what level of intelligence we've gleaned from these terrorists. You say paltry, I say substantial- neither of us can say we're right.

As for the mistreatment tag- given that the gitmo prisoners were on a battlefield wearing no uniforms or insignia, by all rights they should have/could have been shot (per Geneva convention standards). Any discussion of mistreatment at this point is moot in my estimation- they are alive, which is more than they deserve.

"And one of my biggest concerns is that we have set a precident now that is ripe for increasing levels of abuse."

Uh- sawing heads off, plowing planes into skyscrapers killing thousands and wrecking our economy, dragging corpses through streets and hanging them off bridges..... dunno if there's much room for increase here.

I don't recall Gitmo being full of Islamic lunatics in early September 2001. So w/o any so-called torture or abuse (which is a lie), we get 9/11.

Now Gitmo is full of Islamic lunatics and our planes are not slamming into buildings.

I'd say Gitmo is working out just fine.

Turban Durbin is the latest piece of shit to drop atop the dung heap the modern Democratic Party has become. He's a disgrace.