Your quote for the day

Will

Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.

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24 Responses

  1. Barry says:

    Well, let’s start off with the fact that Rove is a lying wh*reson. Then add in the fact that he’s boasting of having helped corrupt the political system of the USA.Report

  2. Jaybird says:

    “It’s morally reprehensible to do X! Oh, my guy is doing it? Well, you have to understand how the game is played… and, besides, didn’t you think it was so great when your guy was doing it?”Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

      Followed by “hey, weren’t you yelling about how awful it is that X is being done just a few short months ago? Well, I’ve thought about it and I don’t trust politicians with that much power! We need to end X now and (politician) is awful for Xing!”Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

      If the presidency were the dictatorship you’d prefer, Guantanamo would be closed and its prisoners would be tried in real courtrooms. Perhaps you’d sign onto a constitutional amendment that prevents Congress and the states from getting in the way of the president when he’s trying to do the right thing.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        @Mike Schilling, you want answers? You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.Report

        • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

          There are things I’ll accept in the give and take of friendly debate, but I will not be made into Tom Cruise.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:

            @Mike Schilling, I’m just quite regularly irritated by the attitude that says “I don’t know if I am going to take the argument based upon principles or the argument based upon political realities and pragmatism until I see who is in power” thing.

            If I like the people in power, well, you have to understand, politics is the art of the possible, to be sure, please know that I sympathize, certainly, would that we lived in a perfect world… and if the people I like are not in power, you either look down from your ivory tower or you are out here in the trenches. You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. YOU EITHER GIVE A MOMENT’S THOUGHT TO THE FACT THAT CHILDREN ARE DYING OR YOU REFUSE TO GIVE A MOMENT’S THOUGHT TO THE DEATH OF CHILDREN… wait, the parties have switched? Well, you have to understand. While *EVERY* death is a tragedy, there are opportunity costs…

            Which, at the end of the day, brings us to how absolutely right Karl Rove happens to be.

            If he is a war criminal, then Barack Obama is a war criminal.Report

            • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

              One helped institute a system of kidnapping and torture. One is working to dismantle it, even if not as quickly as I’d like. Those are different things, just as starting a war and not ending it as quickly as I’d like are different things.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                @Mike Schilling, really? Because I was under the impression that Obama was merely closing Guantanamo without really doing much to address the kidnapping or torture.

                Here’s the first sentence from http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/obama-administr.html

                The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.

                The problem with Guantanamo isn’t that it’s a military base. It’s what goes on there.

                It will continue to go on, whether or not it goes on in that particular place. It’s moving, not dismantling.Report

  3. Mike Schilling says:

    The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.

    That doesn’t say “we’re going to continue to send people abroad to be tortured”, it says “we don’t want to have to reveal the details of all the crap that previous administration did”. Are you really surprised that Obama made the pragmatic choice not to allow the military and CIA to be sued? Can you name a potential president you think would have chosen otherwise?Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:

      @Mike Schilling, okay, fine.

      http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/01/nation/na-rendition1

      He’s keeping the program intact.

      HE’S KEEPING THE PROGRAM INTACT.Report

    • Scott in reply to Mike Schilling says:

      @Mike Schilling,

      How can the Obama admin claim to be bringing change if it continues to hide what the Bush admin has done. Doesn’t that make them complicit?Report

      • North in reply to Scott says:

        @Scott, Err wouldn’t you and other republicans be the first in line to shriek treason, cry surrender and go apeshit if Obama declassified and released all this crap?
        My own impression; the Prez is trying to wind it up and end it slowly with no fuss. Personally I don’t agree with his decision to do it that way but I can see why he’s trying. Obama doesn’t like controversy and he wants to do other stuff during his term other than throw down with the GOP (and some Dems) who’ll be fighting for their political lives.

        Besides, (to repeat myself) just ending this crap would take balls and Obama’s has been a very balls-shy administration to date. Maybe Jesse Jackson actually did manage to clip ‘em off during the primary.

        All that said, no Turdblossom is wrong, there is a big difference between implementing a historic program of torture and failing to end it. But it’s one of degree. The longer Obama dithers on this the more the muck of Bush Minor’s crimes will soak onto him and eventually they’ll become his crimes too.Report

        • Scott in reply to North says:

          @North,

          If the material that was germane to the cases was not truly worthy of a “classified” label then I would have no problem with it being released. I know from my father who works in the defense industry that there is a lot of info that is classified but doesn’t really need to be.

          If Obama truly wants to end Bush’s policies then why doesn’t he just do so instead of endorsing them and continuing their practice and implementation? Obama claimed he would repudiate Bush’s policies by bringing “hope and change.” Are you saying he was only leading the gullible masses on? By using the phrase “failing to end it” you make Obama sound so passive but he is continuing right were Bush left off and in some ways is even worse.Report

          • North in reply to Scott says:

            @Scott,
            Scott, if the charges against Bush’s policies are even half true then trying to simply “end them” is, while within Obama’s power, a dicey proposition. If Obama starts disclosing information on what has been allegedly done in our name the GOP (and some Democrats) will be looking at electoral Armageddon. Accordingly they will fight like they’ve never fought before to prevent it from happening and they have a willing and passionate base of supporters on the right who’ll back them to the hilt. The issue would explode into a firestorm of controversy. No other issue would move in Washington.

            Obama has/had other things he wanted/wants to do. He wants/wanted to do healthcare, finance reform, energy, immigration and so on and so forth. He made a deal with the devil in essence that if he soft shoed on the torture issue he could have political oxygen to do other things. In some ways he’s succeeded. He has his HCR, he’s on the verge of financial reform, but he’s in danger of loosing his soul.

            Bush Minor’s administration was moral monsters and cowards for the programs they implemented (if even half the allegations are true). Obama ran on cleaning this issue up. Was he lying then and “leading the rubes on” or was he honest but didn’t realize the scope and extent of what he would have to deal with? Only Obama and maybe a few people in his inner circle know. But if he continues to just let the machine that Bush and Co set up tick along then soon it’ll be his as much as theirs. In some ways it already is.

            So maybe he was duplicitous, maybe he was nieve, but he’s beginning to look like a coward to me. I think I understand why he’s making the choices he’s making. I just don’t agree with them. Hopefully he’ll tackle this crap before it’s too late, he still can, there is time.Report

            • Scott in reply to North says:

              @North,

              Do you have a date when the machine will finally become Obama’s responsibility and he can be legitimately held accountable? Just yesterday Obama was still blaming Republicans for putting the US economy in a ditch so it doesn’t seem as if Obama is one to take responsibility.Report

              • North in reply to Scott says:

                @Scott, The date when it’s 100% Obama’s responsibility is the date he leaves office having failed to dismantle it. How it scales up to 99% during his term of course depends on who you ask.

                I dunno how much you can blame Republicans for putting the overall economy in a ditch but they sure put the state of the government in one with their . He can blame that on them probably for a year or two more with increasingly diminishing returns. Once he’s re-elected I doubt that dog’ll hunt any more.Report

              • Scott in reply to Scott says:

                @North,

                So Obama gets pass for giving the CIA a green light to kill American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki without due process? It sounds as if Obama is starting to see things as did Harold Koh.

                http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/world/14awlaki.html?hpReport

              • North in reply to Scott says:

                @Scott, Not from me, nor from history I wouldn’t think. If he ends Bush Minor’s torture program tomorrow he’ll still wear that seperate issue around his neck for the rest of his life. We’re only discussing how much of Bush’s shit Obama has caked onto him. Obama has to carry his own decisions as well.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    And, in the NYT today:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/world/asia/22detain.html

    WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that three men who had been detained by the United States military for years without trial in Afghanistan had no recourse to American courts. The decision was a broad victory for the Obama administration in its efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods without judicial oversight. Report