Yeah, Um, About That Torture Thing

Osha Gray Davidson at Forbes:

“Listen,” he said, “waterboarding and/or other coercive techniques did nothing to contribute to our attempts to track down UBL (Usama bin Laden). What did succeed was weeks, months and years of diligent, laborious, and dedicated work – all within the bounds of legal and ethical boundaries….No torture, no waterboarding, no coercion – nothing inhumane – is considered a useful tool in our work.”

Straight up - Dick Cheney is a criminal.  I can be pretty forgiving of people in positions of power who fuck up if I think they made wrong decisions in good faith.  I can even be persuaded to ease up on a guy if he comes back to say he fucked up and if he had a chance to do it over, he'd do it differently.  None of that applies to Dick Cheney.  The guy is bloated with rot. 

The Partisan Abides

It's become impossible to talk about certain things because the discussion always breaks along very predictable party line fracture planes.

The killing of OBL provides a good recent example.  Obama's National Security Team rejiggers the doctrine for going after the bad guys; they start almost from scratch because Jr Bush just decided to let it slide; and we get some pretty spectacular results in about a year's time.

Now, of course, Dick Cheney and John Yoo are all over the place doing the Told-Ya-So dance, trying to convince us that it was their torture regime that cracked the case when practically anybody who knows anything knows that's bullshit.  But the point is that the discussion breaks down again according to which party you favor, because that's what we get from the Press Poodles and the Opinionators.

So while we yell at each other about The Torture Party vs the Party of Appeasement or whatever recycled crap du jour is on the menu today, we aren't paying much attention to some things that should be pretty important.  eg: Obama has stepped up dramatically the use of these RoboCop drones, pursuing a very aggressive program of targeted assassinations.  And not only does he not feel constrained by international conventions against such things, he seems to have taken to heart the whole Unitary Executive malarkey.  Are "liberals" now OK with a president who does all the shitty things Jr Bush was doing just because he does them better?  Are Dems feeling good about themselves because they finally have a guy who actually goes out there and kills people?  Is that it?

Anyway, I get the feeling Obama's finding it really difficult to do much about reversing some of the damage done to our little experiment in self government the last 60 years or so, partly because of the power trip that goes with the office, but also because of the same ol' political expediency these guys always think they have to serve.  ie: if he goes after any of the Bushies for torture, he first has to get over the huge obstacle of making the case that it's not just a political witch hunt.  I think he's made one political calculation that's totally dependent on the "basic decency of the American people" (always a gamble) in that he's counting on us eventually getting over the truly toxic affects of an ugly combination of 9-11 plus the Authoritarian Reflex, and realizing that doing evil things in the name of goodness is just fuckin' stupid.

Another one may be that he figures if he's careful enough about how he knocks people around; if he can make it look like a "surgical removal of a malignancy", then he's got a shot at balancing the Peace Prize against the Creeping Empire.  Not bloody likely, but there's a weird Yin and Yang vibe to it.  (then again, see "just fuckin' stupid" above).

Justice Delayed

Monica Marie Goodling, the key figure in the controversy about the political hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys during the Bush Administration, has received a public reprimand from the Virginia State Bar.

A VSB subcommittee concluded that Goodling, a member of the VSB since 1999, had violated ethics rules by committing “a criminal or deliberately wrongful act” that reflected adversely on her “honesty, trustworthiness or fitness to practice law.”

Read the full decision.

But, hey - she was a douchebag for Jesus, so we're not gonna lift her license; and after all, she didn't really mean to break the law.

At a certain level, the power and the money and the position make it impossible for anybody to be guilty or to be held to account for anything.  The best we can hope for is that "nobility has the good grace to die by its own hand in matters of honor."  This is just all pretty fucked up right here.

South Carolina Debate

Coupla points:
1) Repubs (traditionally and famously and loudly) have long made the assertion that they don't much cotton to all this polling and focus group kinda stuff, but here they all are - for about the eleventy jillionth time - sitting for one of Lil Franky's circle jerks.  Hypocrites

2) These SoCo's made an angry point of saying they think they're being disrespected by those Repub candidates who didn't show up, so at the end of the clip, Sean (they call me Mr Obsequious) Hannity went way out of his way to say that he was physically located in South Carolina at that very moment.

3) These latter-day Repubs are authoritarian to the point where they're practically eager to vote for a Caesar.

Iran

Won't it be interesting if Iran implodes?  (The Guardian)

It's shaping up to be a classic struggle between Secular (Ahmadinejad) and Sectarian (Ali Khamenei).

So who do you root for here?  Typically, I'd have to go with Secular Guy because I really hate it when somebody assumes political power by claiming to be "God's Representative On Earth".  But two years ago, when Iranian kids were in the streets trying to stand up for themselves, and Ahmadinejad sent his goons out to stomp on them, it was Khamenei and his clerics who called on Ahmadinejad to cool it.

So, as always, politics makes for some pretty strange morality.  And morality seems oddly political at times.

OBL Pix

I don't think I care one way or the other about the death pix of Osama bin Laden.  They constitute a document of some historical import, but I think the probability is high that they'd be seen as trophies, and that just increases the probability of some asshole using them to justify doing something shitty.  If we can make or keep more friends by tucking them safely away in the archives, then OK; let's do that.

The really interesting thing is what Sarah Palin came up with tho'.  She tweeted something about how releasing the pictures would serve as a warning to others who want to do us harm. I dunno how to break this to ya, sweetheart, but I have serious doubts that a potential suicide bomber will be deterred in any way if we threaten to kill him.

Where do these people get this shit?

Conflation

Obama's releasing his long form birth certificate didn't have much effect on Birthers, except that a few of the nuttier Repubs (eg: Michelle Bachman) kinda backed off a little.  But then, Osama bin Laden is taken down, and new polls indicate a near collapse in support for the opinion that Obama was likely born outside of the US.

For me, that comes as close as anybody will ever get to proving that it was just another example of a political party playing to the worst impulses in some people.  It was always and only about trying to delegitimize Obama's presidency.

And here's the sweet juicy fleshy part:  Jr Bush beat Gore and then Kerry by playing up the Manliness Quotient.  Bush wore the costume of the Great American Cowboy, he drove a pickup and he spent time "on the land" clearing brush, etc.  He was practically built from scratch to look and sound and act like our ideal of the typical American workin' guy's hero.  A father figure; somebody with big plans, and big swag, and a big dick.  And that big swingin' dick was never more evident than when Bush was making threats.  Bush talkin' smack about somebody was the basic theme for his whole time in office.  9-11 was the best thing that ever happened for that bozo, because it allowed him to play up the macho bullshit in order to hide the simple fact that he didn't have the intellectual horsepower God gave the average houseplant.

And that's how the Repubs have rolled.  There's probably a dozen or more examples of how Repubs have torn down real heroes who were running for office in order to give us cheap imitations.

Now they have a real challenge.  They spent all that time and energy carefully making OBL into this Uber Villain, only to have the wonky dithering law professor end up being the guy who took him down.  They have to figure out how to attack Obama for having done exactly what they said only a Super Manly Republican could do.

Let The Games Begin

Be sure to tune in tonite (9pm EDT - on DumFux News) for the first GOP debate, kicking off the 2012 Quadrennial Campaign Season!

A Few Fun Pics

 

Just A Single Nod

One small detail of OBL's demise that's drifted thru the noise over the last coupla days is that  JSOC (Joint Special Ops Command - the outfit that pulled off the raid in Abbottabad) was Stanley McCrystal's baby.  Also, McCrystal was a major player in making the deal with Pakistan that included the "Hot Pursuit Clause" that made it all legal to invade Pakistan in our attempt to hammer OBL.

People under McCrystal's command were openly hostile to their CinC and others in Obama's admin (as reported via Rolling Stone Magazine earlier this year).  That's called insubordination, and it just can't be tolerated.  Our system requires keeping the military subordinate to civilian authority because we know it can be extremely dangerous to allow even the best general officers to build any public constituency that runs counter to that civilian authority while still in uniform.   So I won't cry for poor ol' Stanley because I think firing him was exactly the right thing to do, but I think we can acknowledge the guy for having made an important contribution.  Way to go, Stan.  Thanks - and enjoy your retirement.

One Good Line

It turns out that sending all that Foreign Aid to Pakistan over the years was just feeding the hand that bites you.

Good Old American Capitalism

Paraphrasing Mr Mencken: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence or good taste of the American public.

It took a little over 24 hours for the plucky entrepreneurs to descend on the corpse.

Like I said before, there's something just kinda creepy about it, but at the same time, there's an element of The Circle Of Life as well; the dead become sustenance for the living, and so maybe there's some small reason to celebrate because we need to make an effort to find something good in all this bad.  Dunno.  I still I don't like the idea that we're providing incentive for scalp-hunting.  And watching what appeared to be some genuinely spontaneous demonstrations of heartfelt emotional release quickly descend into expressions of nationalistic fervor was chilling for me.

Something else I find a little unsettling is all the cheerleading at MSNBC last night.  All the "big liberals" have been practically giddy about the chance to snatch the National Security issue away from the Repubs.


And, of course, over at DumFux News, everybody has suddenly rediscovered their affections for Jr Bush - after spending the last 2 years rarely even acknowledging his time in office.

"Finally getting bin Laden" is a big deal, but  I'm betting dollars to doughnuts that what it means to politicians will turn out to be very different from what it means to Citizen Joe.

The task for the politicos now is to figure out the wording of a message that will keep us cheering and holding hands, while using our sense of unity as a wedge to isolate their opponents and to incite us to beat them to death with our feelings of good will.

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you're constantly either proven right or pleasantly surprised." --George Will

ism

Ding Dong The Bastard's Dead

Osama bin Laden is dead.  There's a certain feeling of satisfaction for me, but I'm finding it hard to get into any kind of party mood.  First because I think it's more than just a little ghoulish and primitive to celebrate anybody's death, even when it's somebody who is so obviously and irredeemably a nihilistic asshole like OBL was.  But mainly it's because of the price the whole world has had to pay just to kill this one guy.  And it's because this isn't the end of anything; it's not the beginning of the end; it's not the end of the beginning; it's not any other clever little bumper sticker sentiment the pundits and PR spinners will come up with over the next several news cycles.  (Tho' I admit it'll be fun to see what we decide will be the winning slogan)

Here's one:
"My government spent a trillion dollars, 20 billion rounds of ammo and 6,000 American lives to kill Osama bin Laden, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

White House Correspondents' Dinner

The Platitude

If you're not a socialist at 18 then you have no heart.
If you're still a socialist at 35, then you have no brain.
And if you're not a progressive at 60, then you have no soul.

Today's Bumper Sticker

The Donald

Yet for the Republican Party, the accumulation of money is proof in itself of virtue, however it was acquired. The richest 1 per cent pay for the party's campaigns, and the party in turn serves their interests entirely. The most glaring example is that they have simply exempted many of the rich from taxes. Johnston studied four of Trump's recent tax returns, and found he legally paid no taxes in two of them. In America today, a janitor can pay more income tax than Donald Trump – and the Republicans regard that not as a source of shame, but of pride.

Go read the piece right now.

The Donald Unbleeped

I'll withhold judgement for now as to whether or not Trump will make an official run.  Aside from the obvious attempt to generate buzz for his TV show (ie: himself), I think the determining factor is all about how much money he thinks he can bring in without having to spend it on any actual campaigning.

And here's what I'm waiting to hear from the Repubs concerning the blatant hucksterism that I think is at the heart of that so-called party:  "Yes, we know Gingrich and Palin and Trump are just hucksters who are only in politics for the money and the ego stroke, and they don't really have any interest in governing; but at least they're honest about being hucksters - and honesty is something we think is essential for the kind of strong leadership this great country needs."

Today's T-Shirt

Politics won't get better until voters get better at politics.