So Many Pretty Words...

"As Winston Churchill said, the '…Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.' "

-Barack Obama. Seriously. What an asshole.

"Obviously What You're doing is Absolutely-Untouchably-Blatantly LEGAL..but I Need You to Explain Why, Serf!"

What exactly makes politicians think they can ask private actors to do things and then get mad when those actors don't do the thing requested? (I mean, I realize what makes them do that generally (egomania, insecurity, people-pleasing, borderline personality disorder etc.) but what exactly makes them do that?)

And these pols never ask these folks to stop, ya know, hitting kittens with criquet paddles, or shoving old ladies into the street, it always seems to be requests to stop doing obviously legal things.

Pretty rich too that this member of Congress expects better explanations as to the legality of the activities of private citizens than he does as to the President starting wars.

Peter King Puts on a Clinic in Assclownery

What King says there is pretty obviously factually inaccurate. When even Rumsfeld, who's got as big a dog as anyone in this fight, and is an obscene liar, admits that it wasn't torture that generated the intel, then the case is closed as fuck.

But let's assume that King was not making a total assclown of himself when it comes to basic familiarity with reality. Let's assume this was an open debate on the facts. This issue is anything but an open debate as a matter of law. The US has domestic laws and ratified treaties that make torture and waterboarding and degrading and inhuman treatment illegal. No one seriously disputes this that I've heard.

So what exactly is King saying here? What is this debate that has suposedly been "re-awakened" in the aftermath of this incident? The only thing of value in this discussion is how it affects our policy going forward, and yet I don't hear anyone saying that our laws should be changed and that we should withdraw from these treaties. Funny thing, that.

Fanboy Alert!

So apparently over at Slate it was "Let a Tiger Beat writer intern with the big boys" day. What a gushing, nonsensical, completely unsubstantiated fluff piece. I was semi-literally expecting the little note about the author that usually appears at the end of articles to say something like "John Dickerson cupped the balls of several White House officials in investigating this report."

My favorite parts:

The presidency distorts the brain like perhaps no other job on Earth. In the First Noggin, there must be many compartments locked double tight, so the president doesn't show anything on his face.

Ooh "double tight!" It's true, if I don't lock things in compartments in my brain they end up being shown "on" my face. This is why I suck at chit chat, cuz my face is screaming out "fuck you, crazy lady!" People don't like that.

Sometimes he must keep secrets even from the people who work down the hall. But each box has to be accessible immediately if a decision needs to be made.

This is also a very special skill. Everyone on my hallway at the office knows how big a David Schwimmer fan I am, and is completely up to date on which of my family members is an alcoholic. Also, I know when I tell someone a secret I want them to keep, I make sure they provide me with a detailed description of their work area layout (sometimes I need a diagram). If they work on anything resembling a hallway, I just keep that shit to myself (and my hallmates). And if they work in a cubicle!? Well then fuck me!

Sometimes however I try really hard to not tell the Hall-folks my secrets, but this has drawbacks: 1) it's totally exhausting and hurts my "First Noggin" and, 2) sometimes I try to so hard not to share it that I end up forgetting the information altogether, or, in a best case scenario, it takes me hours to access the info, like a dial-up modem downloading a JPEG of a cat wearing sunglasses. People who can "immediately" access information that they've inexplicably decided to store in their brain, should probably have their own comic book and lunchbox.

On Saturday he attended the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, where he had to tell jokes and sit through a comedy routine during which everyone watched his every facial twitch for insights into his psyche.

Oh man, it must have been so lame to sit through a comedy routine, especially when it was that dumb-ass Gallagher doing is whole crush-things-with-a-mallet shtick. Oh no, wait a second, it was the head writer for SNL, who skewered all the president's opponents. But all that champagne and gourmet food probably made the situation unbearable. I don't know much about this John Dickerson guy, but he's apparently from the Midwest or maybe the South? You know, that part of the country where they say "everyone watched his every facial twitch for insights into his psyche" where you or I would "everyone got shitfaced and laughed their asses off." Regional idioms are so wacky!

And I'm TRYING to Eat More Salad

Start at about 1:45...



"..has ended one war and is trying to end another..." Wow. My governor is a full-on propagandist. In Patrick land, "tripling our forces in" equals "trying to end", to say nothing of the two wars Obama started. Plus, look at Patrick just turtle-up when pressed at all. Embarrassing.

What a trite and meaningless interview. Watch at the 3:05 mark when Maher just says "wow." My reaction exactly. Patrick is just a talking points spokesperson. So sad. Predictable, but sad.

I thought the strategy of just saying stuff even when you know it's not true was roundly rejected by the "reality-based community" when Bush wore it out. When did that come back to life, and where are the "reality-based" folks now to point it out?

Nothing to See Here?

The new Gitmo revelations are shocking, horrific and just disturbing in a rather profound way. If you really stop and think about the horror we inflicted on some people because we thought they were useful, or couldn't muster the political will to let them go, it gets literally sickening.

This should be a time for serious shame and introspection as a nation. We should be taking a collective moment to consider what our "values" really are, and how it is we've strayed so far. We should wonder what we will tell the youngest generation of Americans when they ask us twenty years from now how America was ever capable of such a thing.

It's so incredibly sad. And, it's almost just as sad to know we're not going to stop and think of such things; to know that there's not going to be much solemnity or outrage or even discussion over this.

The fact that Presidents from each party are now forever linked to the blight that is Gitmo should allow us to come clean about what we've done and what we've become. Instead, that fact will be the central reason we delude ourselves into covering it all up.

Rule of Law = Doing What's Popular (Duh!)

This article is so disappointing on a few different levels.

First, what it reflects (assuming it is accurate), is a mix of incompetence, and weakness on serious issues of principle and campaign promises on the part of the Obama Administration and Obama himself. But given all that, the tone of the article reads somewhat sympathetically. It highlights all the political difficulties and traps inherent in any War on Terror issue, and almost seems to paint this issue as one where Obama could've been more organized, sure, but man it was tough, and public opinion polls were all against him, then one congressman wrote one angry letter, and then there was that trial where the guy got convicted, so that was (somehow) bad news...

Indeed, the article fails to seize on a rather critical point and just reports it very matter-of-factly:

The president asked Matthew G. Olsen, the Justice Department lawyer heading the task force, approximately how many Guantanamo detainees could be prosecuted, according to administration officials.

Probably fewer than 20, Olsen said.

The president seemed peeved that the number was so small, in contrast with the optimistic predictions during his election campaign that nearly all of the remaining detainees could face trial or be transferred.

"Could be prosecuted" is really just a funny way to say "there's significant evidence of their guilt." We use another funny phrase to describe people we can't say that about: Not Guilty.

In other words, the President was apparently "peeved" that sometimes you think people are guilty but can't prove it. I'm sure that's tough and all, but something he probably should've considered before signing up to be the leader of America. It's also something that Washington Post should've highlighted, that that attitude by itself, let alone all of the electoral/political/opinion poll calculations over legal questions, is completely improper.