Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Thanks so much

You may recall that the stalwart Senator Feinstein expressed her confidence in the new Alberto Gonzales (via Digby):

"I do believe he will be a truly nonpolitical, nonpartisan attorney general; that he will make his views very clear; and that, once he has the opportunity to do the evaluation he believes he needs on waterboarding, he will be willing to come before the Judiciary Committee and express his views comprehensively and definitively," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, one of the six who voted with the majority for confirmation.

Who has already turned out to be same as the old Alberto Gonzales:

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said that he'd been getting the impression that Mukasey really thought about torture in relative terms, and wanted to know if that was so. Is it OK to waterboard someone if a nuclear weapon was hidden -- the Jack Bauer scenario -- but not OK to waterboard someone for more pedestrian information?

Mukasey responded that it was "not simply a relative issue," but there "is a statute where it is a relative issue," he added, citing the Detainee Treatment Act. That law engages the "shocks the conscience" standard, he explained, and you have to "balance the value of doing something against the cost of doing it."

What does "cost" mean, Biden wanted to know.

Mukasey said that was the wrong word. "I mean the heinousness of doing it, the cruelty of doing it, balanced against the value.... balanced against the information you might get." Information "that couldn't be used to save lives," he explained, would be of less value.
Ted Kennedy asked Mukasey if it would be torture if Mukasey himself were to be waterboarded. Mukasey refused to give a non-subjective answer.

Thus did we end up at the place where we started.

Senator Feinstein is so utterly predictable. When there is sufficient distance between a Republican outrage and the Constitution, or the rule of law, or some other cornerstone of democracy, we can always count on DiFi to seek middle ground between right and wrong.

Well, Senator, there is a wonderful old saying: if you pour a spoonful of wine into a barrel of shit, you still have a barrel of shit. And if you pour a spoonful of shit into a barrel of wine? You still have a barrel of shit.

Based on results, it is difficult to to avoid the conclusion that ending up with a barrel of shit is not a mere accident, but in fact the object of the game DiFi is playing.

Mission accomplished.

1 Comments:

Blogger Eric Soderstrom said...

I love that whole shit and wine analogy. I used to use, "You can't polish a turd, Beavis," but I like this one better.

Were you around when she was mayor of the city by the bay? She is the kind of Democrat we need to root out and send packing. She's a little Lieberman.

By the way, if I printed up Kucinich/Gravel '08 T-shirts, would you wear one to work?

1:51 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home




see web stats