Weekend Partying With Tim Krekel

Photo: May Newman playing a cigar box banjo she made: Palatka Florida 192?

IT'S A BEAUTIIFUL, SUNNY 85 DEGREES HERE IN LOUISVILLE, KY TODAY 

 

Time to Party

For your listening pleasure today I found these wonderful videos of Tim Krekel. Tim's a music legend here in Louisville, Ky and in my house we play his cd's all the time. 

From his My Space page:

Kentucky-bred Singer-Songwriter-Guitarist Tim Krekel has stunned listeners with his soulful grooves and knockout passionate performances for years.Yet, he remains a welcome, new discovery for many outside of the Southeast US. Befriended and endorsed as a personal favorite early in his career by John Belushi, the modest Krekel has a massive recording and touring history with icons such as Jimmy Buffet, The Eagles, Bo Diddley, Tracy Nelson, Delbert McClinton and others. He has enjoyed several Billboard chart-toppers and 1 Hits; and is ranked as the 150th Greatest Artist of All Time on WFPK/Louisville's "Fortunate 500" and had FOUR songs listed in WFPK's "2001 Greatest Songs of All Time".

I'd encourage everyone to check out his My Space page because he has some audio recordings of some more of his songs that you just gotta hear! And for politico's like me, you will especially appreciate his new song - Bailout blues. 

And now ladies and gentleman,  the music of TIM KREKEL

Unfortunately this final video doesn't have the video and soundtrack in sync so you don't want to watch the video but you will want to listen to the song because it's one of the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard. When we see Tim sing this live we get chills up and down our body. It's truly a beautiful song. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Incidently Tim has quite a few cd's out there that you can purchase if you like his music, like we do.

Stop Scapegoating?

Poster for a side-show at the Vermont State Fair, Rutland - September 1941

In todays Washington Post David Broder takes his protect the establishment at all cost mindset to a new low, even for David Broder. Listed below is the comment I left on the Post's website about his poorly reasoned, Stop Scapegoating, column. My comment by no means addresses all of the crazy things said by Mr. Broder and I welcome others to post their observations.

Boy, David Broder has really outdone himself on this one, and not in a good way. This is as shocking an opinion piece as I've seen on this issue.

We can’t prosecute lawbreakers if some people calling for prosecutions don’t have “pure” motives? What the heck does that have to do with evidence that crimes were committed? When have we ever considered the motives of anyone, other than the criminals themselves when deciding whether to prosecute? 

Mr. Broder also wrongly believes that politics and not evidence should determine whether to prosecute or not prosecute when he states that Obama and not AG Holder and the DOJ should make this determination. That is un-American. Our system of government does not support political interference in prosecutions, as any school child knows.

Mr. Broder also tells us that the memos on torture were a deliberate policy decision made in all the “proper” places by “proper” officials but he doesn’t mention that what these “proper” officials decided in these “proper” places was to “improperly” develop a policy of breaking the law. That’s not a “proper” policy, that’s criminal behavior. This is not about criminalizing policy differences it’s about pointing out that the policy itself was criminal. 

To use Broder's flawed logic, if these "proper" people in "proper" places determined they would have a policy to murder every first born child in this country that would be a legitimate policy that should not be prosecuted. What sheer nonsense.

David Broder should be ashamed of himself for writing such drivel.

Chris Matthews: Turley and Krugman's Opinions Are Suspect Because They Have a "POV"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I found this segment on Chris Matthew's Hardball program tonight to be absolutely Outrageous. 

Mr. Matthews repeatedly interrupted his guest, Johnathan Turley, to the point that viewers could barely hear Turley's arguments.  In addition, Matthews used the words - "Point of View" as a pejorative to in effect label Mr. Turley as someone whose opinion was somehow suspect or not serious because he had a POV. This term was not used by Matthews when he talked with his other guest, Pat Buchanan, about Buchanan's point of view, nor was it used when Matthews introduced a video clip of John McCain where McCain made a statement about his own point of view with regard to torture prosecutions. 

Mr. Matthews did, however, use the term again when he read a snippet from a recent piece written by Paul Krugman, who also happens to share Mr. Turley's view. So for Matthews, anyone who disagrees with those who don't want to have prosecutions (Matthews himself) is automatically suspect or should not be taken seriously because they have a "Point of View".  

This disgusting episode was just another version of the media's characterization that only those on the "left" want prosecutions and therefore their opinion is suspect because they have a POV that differs from our establishment media personalities. 

I guess Mr. Matthews just conveniently forgot that Johnathan Turley also argued for impeachment during President Clinton's impeachment. I guess he also conveniently forgot that Bruce Fein, a former Reagan official and no "lefty,"  who also argued for Clinton's impeachment, supports Mr. Turley's POV and did so while Bush was still president.  

No, you can bet that Matthews didn't forget any of this information. What Matthews was doing was to  deliberately create the impression in the viewer's mind that Mr. Turley's views on this subject can be dismissed out of hand because he's a member of the "left" who has a POV that the serious people in the media don't take very seriously. 

If you find what Matthews did tonight absolutely outrageous behavior, like I did, I hope that you will contact both Matthews and MSNBC  and let them know that we won't stand for this kind of blatant manipulation.

Update: Jason Linkins at Huffington Post wrote a piece commenting on what Buchanan says in this same Hardball  segment.

Update 2: I'm sure this won't happen but I sent an email to Keith Olbermann to nominate Chris Matthews for today's worst person in the world.

More Pathetic, Media Excuses For Not Prosecuting Torture

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This video shows yet more pathetic, faux discussions about torture among our media personalities where they provide excuse after excuse for why we shouldn't prosecute. They decide in advance they don't want prosecutions and then work backward to provide excuses for why they are right. Amazing.  

They also bemoan that this issue is turning into a "political" fight when it is they themselves who have framed this issue as a political one by once again characterizing it as coming from people on the "left". 

There are many mind numbing comments made in this "discussion" but these two in particular stood out for me.

Pat Buchanan: ...we know what happened to these people, we know who did it, we know who authorized it, we know the deciders decided -

people on the other side, I would say on the left are coming to this saying look this is Nuremberg, we have crimes against humanity here, they've already decided in their hearts this is evil, wicked and wrong and when you have those things the people that made the decisions have to be prosecuted because that's the right thing to do. In other words they come to it with conclusions already and this is what you're running into on the other side.

So Pat Buchanan tells us that "we know what happened", "we know who did it", "we know who authorized it" and "we know the deciders decided" yet he thinks people who advocate for prosecutions for what was done (people on the "left") are somehow unreasonable for coming to the same conclusions that Pat did. We know what happened, who did it, and who authorized it just like Pat. The only difference between our two positions is that Pat won't admit that the evidence shows that we used torture. Pat and others like him can't admit that what we did was torture because to do so means that he'd have to then admit that the Bush administration authorized crimes and if they authorized crimes they need to be prosecuted for them.  

But Joe Scarborough figures out how to eliminate that problem by saying:  

Scarborough: What we need to figure out is, in this new world. what is torture?

Yup, ole Joe figures the only way out of coming to the logical conclusion to prosecute for torture is to try to change the definition of torture just like the Bush administration did in the first place when they wanted to manufacture faux legal cover to in order to torture. 

Yeah, Joe, it's all about the definition, just like when Clinton wanted to define the meaning of what the word is, is. Right.

More Attempts by Our Media To Politicize Torture

During yet another discussion on Morning Joe we saw yet again our media personalities trying to politicize the issue of torture  by trying to paint this as a left vs. right issue.

But when Rep. Peter Hoekstra said on the show that there are documents that show what occurred in the Congressional meetings about torture and that these documents should be released,  I agree. I agree, because contrary to our establishment media personalities, most of us who are advocating for investigation and prosecution for these war crimes are not "liberal score-settlers" as they want everyone to believe. We want all of the evidence on the table and if that evidence shows that Democrats were complicit in this torture program then they too should be held accountable.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Watergate's Lesson on Crises, Closure and Moving On

Curious Photo from the George Eastman House Collection, 1880

Gerald F. Seib has written  a piece in the Wall Street Journal today entitled Watergate's Lesson on Crises, Closure and Moving On. Instead of advocating that our country follow the rule of law, however, Mr. Seib instead seeks to join with others in our establishment media who have politicized this issue. 

In order to try to justify not following the law in the current torture issue Seib reaches back into history to point to another president who, when it came time for him to allow the rule of law to take it's course, instead chose to succumb to political considerations when he granted a pardon to President Nixon.

Mr. Seib says that history has vindicated Ford for his decision. However, in light of the fact that we now have another president who, like Nixon, thought that he too was above the law there may very well have to be some second thoughts among historians concerning the wisdom of the Ford decision.

[Snip]

The president's advisers insist that, though their party controls Congress, the White House doesn't really have the ability to stop lawmakers from going down that path, only the ability to influence how they might do so. The broader question is what that distraction might do to the president's agenda -- driving, as it would, even bigger wedges between the parties in Congress.

One who has dealt with that dilemma is Tom Korologos, a former U.S. ambassador who worked in the Ford White House on legislative relations. Mr. Ford, Mr. Korologos says, "smelled what could have been a horrendous Washington event" in a Nixon trial. He decided it would be better for the country to forgo that event. 

More than that, he adds, Mr. Ford concluded it would be better for his own agenda: "We were in the middle of an inflation fight. We were in the middle of a lot of international issues. It would have sucked the air out of a whole lot of goals he pursued." 

That is the danger Mr. Obama faces as well.

Below is a copy of the email that I sent to Mr. Seib last night and what I then posted on the WSJ site today:

Dear Mr. Seib,

Perhaps if President Ford had allowed a trial to go forward instead of worrying about his political agenda and worrying about comforting an establishment that wanted the status quo protected then we might not be where we are today. 

Maybe if President Bush and VP Cheney had seen a president hauled into court, just like any other citizen, then maybe they wouldn't have found it so easy to torture - maybe they would have thought twice about it.

Maybe now we need to rectify the mistake made by President Ford, in order to deter future executives from thinking that when the president does it, it's legal.

In addition, to what I told Mr. Seib in my email, Glenn Greenwald, as usual, has a spot-on piece today about how our establishment media and our politicians are inappropriately politicizing this issue

[Snip]

Blocking criminal investigations for political reasons is definitively corrupt -- period.  That's true whether Democrats or Republicans do it.  

[Snip]

Punishing politically powerful criminals is about vindicating the rule of law.  Partisan and political considerations should play no role in it.  It is opponents of investigations and prosecutions who are being driven by partisan allegiances and a desire to advance their political interests.  By contrast, proponents of investigations are seeking to vindicate the most apolitical yet crucial principle of our system of government: that we are a nation of laws that cannot allow extremely serious crimes to be swept under the rug for political reasons.  That's true no matter what is best for Obama's political goals and no matter how many Democrats end up being implicated -- ethically, politically or even legally -- by the crimes that were committed.

The Wall Street Journal piece written by Mr. Seib is sadly a perfect example of what I believe is our establishment media learning the wrong lesson from Watergate because they continue to focus more on politics and partisan allegiances, as Greenwald points out, then about vindicating the rule of law that would serve the needs of the entire country and not just the needs of a few in the establishment.

Update: Mr. Seib also has a video about his views.

President Bush: Just Another Liberal Score-Settler?

After reading the newly released Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Detainee Treatment we learned that the same interrogation techniques that were used by the CIA were also used by the military. So those "few bad apples" that the administration blamed for Abu Ghraib were not bad apples, after all. They were actually following administration guidelines that had been set up by officials in the White House. Now that we have confirmation of this fact I thought it would be interesting to watch the 2004 Al-Arabiya interview of Bush where he discusses the recent news story about what happened at  Abu Ghraib.

"The practices that took place in that prison are abhorant and they don't represent  America. They represent the actions of a few people. Secondly it's important for people to understand that in a democracy that there will be a full investigation - we want to know the truth"

Sadly Mr. President, we're still waiting to hear the full truth about what really happened at  Abu Ghraib and other U.S. prisons but we're getting closer to the truth every day.

"In our country when an allegation of abuse is made, more than an allegation in this case - actual abuse- we saw the pictures there will be a full investigation and justice will be delivered."

You hear that all you traditional media personalities who believe that there should be no accountability for torture? Even President Bush believes that when you have an allegation and in this case more than just an allegation (actual evidence of torture), the U.S. has a full investigation and justice is delivered. 

Do you think that President Bush is just another "liberal score-settler"?

 

 

torture

PATHETIC

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

PATHETIC!

For anyone wondering why the establishment media is held in such low regard one need look no further for evidence than this video of today's Morning Joe program. Pathetic is the best word I can use to describe the entire conversation that occurred. The entire video is full of distortions, CYA comments and some just outright lies. I was so angered after watching this disgraceful display that I felt I needed to make this post in order to do my part in holding our media accountable for telling us the truth, not the kind of  garbage we saw this morning.

Have these people even bothered to read any of the government documents about our treatment of our prisoners? It's mind boggling to me that people in our media can actually sit around and make comments that what was done to our prisoners was no different than what we do to our own military. That is just factually false. Is this willful ignorance or are these people so delusional that they actually believe this ? Or maybe it's just that lying is the only way for them to convince the public that there should be no accountability for this outrageous program? 

This video is such a clear example of what our establishment media has been pushing from day 1

NO PROSECUTIONS - even if we find out that the evidence reveals that crimes were committed or in the case of Meacham, a call for no prosecutions before the investigation is even started. 

Meacham: I don't think we should be prosecuting people, uh,  but I do think we should be finding out exactly what happened and why.

Scarborough: It would be very difficult if we started prosecuting people because you couldn't stop with the lawyers it would  have to go to Dick Cheney & Condoleeza Rice & Don Rumsfeld & George W. Bush -  all the people around the table. As Donnie said that is the last thing this president wants for this own political reasons.

Meacham: I completely agree with that. I think that you have to go to the top responsible officer and everyone likes to talk about VP Cheney in this context, and they should, he was a critical player but we had a president, we had I think a president who history will show was much more hands on than we think and so you would have to somehow or another figure out how to hold a president culpable in his official role which has been a very complicated thing in our Constitutional history. You mentioned the Nixon example which is the best, I think. And I think you're right in that a criminal prosecution takes us to a very different place then we've been in the past...at the same time I would love to see a terrific senator or congressman doing a 911 commission kind of thing.

So Meacham, in typical beltway establishment fashion,  evidently holds the view that we shouldn't prosecute the unethical lawyers who wrote memos to provide legal cover for this illegal torture program because then we'd have to go after ALL the high-level officials responsible and we can't do that because that's too "complicated." Evidently prosecuting those few lower level  "bad apples" that we've already prosecuted will just have to be good enough.

Scarborough: I hear from some agencies that 100 people died while in captivity in these type of prisons I don't know whether that's the truth or not I would like to know though -  I think you're exactly right that we have these  investigations - we clear the air but we need to be focused and rational about it and not emotional.

Meacham: ...I don't think we know exactly what happened... Let's do a Post 911 commission. 

Deutsch: Let's not prosecute I think we all agree on that...

Meacham: nods his head in approval.

Think about this conversation...Scarborough brings up that he's heard that 100 people died who were in our care....He then says we need investigations but we must be focused and rational about it and not emotional...Meacham says we don't know exactly what happened but he nods in agreement when Deutsch says we shouldn't prosecute. 

I wonder how anyone can hear that there might have been 100 prisoners that died while in our custody, agree we should investigate but without knowing what evidence that investigation shows agree in advance that there should be no prosecutions. What kind of twisted mind does it take to  agree with such thinking?

These people in this discussion have all been on the wrong side of this issue and they know it. They're desperately trying to grab at anything that will prevent them from having to admit that they were wrong like you see in this disgusting comment by Deutsch.

Deutsch: John don't we all know what happened? And you set it up best -  on Sept 10th we were one country on Sept 12th we were a different country and we all know that if you said to everybody in this country OK, if by waterboarding one terrorist you could save your brother would you do it? We all know the answer to that and that was the tenor of this country so without an investigation and Joe help me out here or disagree with me, don't we all kinda know that we walked into that grey emotional and legal area and obviously these are things that people are taught in U.S. military training techniques so there is a precedent there, so don't we kind of know what went down?

How presumptuous of you Mr. Deutsch to pretend to speak for everyone in this country. Quite frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. There were and still are a lot of people in this country who would never agree to waterboard anyone and even if everyone in this country said "yes" to your self-serving hypothetical, it's up to our leaders to resist the passions of the mob and follow the law. What you've outlined in your scenario isn't a legitimate reason for breaking the law and you should be ashamed of yourself for even insinuating that it is.

After defending the torture program these guys finally get around to defending their own culpability. All of these men have been on the wrong side of this issue for years. They've ridiculed the rest of us who have been advocating for accountability for torture. But now when they finally see the accountability freight train coming directly at them these guys cynically try to minimize their own role in allowing the torture program to go unchallenged by saying that everyone was at fault (not just them). No, everyone was not at fault. And no,  everyone didn't have a different mindset about the rule of law on Sept. 12. Maybe you guys did, but a lot of us didn't and YOU KNOW IT.

Scarborough: The important thing though is John, as with the economic crisis, we love blaming Wall street, we love blaming Washington. We need to blame ourselves also. I remember, you know,  I am a  conservative/libertarian,  I want small government . I remember on Sept 12th  turning to my wife and saying -  you know I love small government, I don't trust federal authority  but  I'll tell  you what we need to do, whatever we have (you can hear Deutsch saying...exactly exactly at this point) to  do to make sure it never happens again and I'll be damned if 300 million Americans didn't say the same thing at the same time, so lets not be self righteous now 8years (Another Deutsch "exactly" heard in the background) later when we think that the skies over New York are safe.

Meacham is nodding in agreement during this whole self-serving comment by Scarborough.

Meachum then (mis) quotes Arthur Schlesinger in order to try to cover up his own incompetence on this issue now that he sees that it's not going to be ignored, as he and his fellow establishment clowns have been advocating.

Meacham: (supposedly quoting Schlesinger) Self righteousness and retrospect is easy and cheap

The accurate Schlesinger quote is:

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

Meacham knows that a lot of us were saying the same things then as we are now so his "cheap" shot about self-righteousness is nothing more than a self-serving comment designed to deflect attention away from the fact that he's been wrong about this issue all along.

Perhaps he should have used this Schlesinger quote instead because it certainly describes Scarborough, Meacham, Deutsch and other establishment media personalities, both then and now.

For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.

Please watch the entire video because I only scratched the surface on the objectionable comments.

torture

Senate Armed Services Committee Releases Report: Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody

Man with book sitting in chair 1915 - George Eastman House Collection

The Senate Armed Services Committee released it's November 20, 2008 report on the treatment of detainees today. 

The executive summary of this report was previously released last year. This statement from Senator Levin was released along with the executive summary last year. 

Part I: Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing - June 17, 2008

Part II: Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing -September 25, 2008

Full Senate Armed Services Committee Report Released April 21, 2009:

Inquiry Into the Treatment of  Detainees in U.S. Custody

News Stories Discussing This Report

Washington Post

Harsh Tactics Readied Before Their Approval

Senate Report Describes Secret Memos

McClatchey

Report: Abusive Tactics Were Used to Find Iraq/Al-Qaida Link

New York Times

Report Gives New Detail on Approval of Brutal Techniques

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use

CNN

Bush-era Officials Authorized Detainee Abuse

Newsweek

Sanctioned Degradation

Time

Report Reveals Pentagon Role in Torture Tactics

Wall Street Journal

Interrogation Views Spread With Help of Bush Aides

Washington Independent

Report Details Origins of Bush-era Interrogation Policies

Salon

Torture Planning Began in 2001, Senate Report Reveals

Rumsfeld: Architect of Torture

Bloomberg

Coercive Interrogation Was Common in Iraq, Senate Report Says

Fox

Report Links CIA to Military Harsh Interrogations

Blog Posts Discussing the SASC Report

Emptywheel

The SASC Smoking Gun on Waterboarding

Did Cheney Order Up Abu Zubayda's 83rd Waterboarding?

The Best Kept Secret in Washington: Conservatives Against Torture

Photo: Two men on springboards with saw felling tree 1900. John Fletcher Ford photographs

In my previous post I talked about how I think the establishment media has deliberately tried to characterize the torture issue as a left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal and Republican vs. Democrat issue.  

...I've noticed for a long time that our establishment media has tried to sell the public on the false idea that the torture issue is all about liberals vs. conservatives, left vs. right  or Republicans vs. Democrats. They are doing this so that citizens of all political persuasions, who are horrified about what our government has done in our names, will not band together to force our government to hold these war criminals accountable.  Our media and political elite want us to continue squabbling with each other, just like the guests do on the "crossfire" type shows, in order to divide us so that our power to demand accountability will be diluted. That's why they don't want us to know that there are conservatives who favor accountability (more on that in my next post) or liberals who don't advocate  prosecutions of Bush administration officials just because they hate Republicans. That's also why they don't want us to know that there are more people who favor accountability for torture than those who don't. 

Our establishment media and political elites know that if we know the truth about all of these things that there will be no way for them to stop us from forcing our government to hold our leaders accountable. They also know that once we stop viewing each other as the "enemy" that we will all discover who our "real" enemies have been all of these years. And once that happens then the chummy club of insiders, who have had a stranglehold on our country for decades, will no longer be running the show and calling the shots. And the thought of having a true democracy positively scares them to death.

Back in March of this year, Glenn Greenwald wrote a blog post about an Evan Thomas cover story in Newsweek that sheds even more light on the attitude of our establishment media.

In his just-released cover story on Paul Krugman's status as Obama critic, Newsweek's Evan Thomas includes these observations: 

By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are.  Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring.

Thomas then acknowledges what is glaringly obvious not only about himself but also most of his media-star colleagues:  "If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am) . . ."

That's right, our establishment media is all about protecting the status quo. They don't want anyone (including the American people) rocking the boat which is why I think they've gone to such outrageous lengths to keep us divided on the issue of torture.

So in order to begin challenging the inside-the-beltway establishment mentality on this issue I think we must first tackle their use of stereotypes about the views of conservatives and liberals on torture.

Despite what the media would have us believe all conservatives do not favor torture and all liberals are not "liberal score-settlers."  These claims are just false.

Yesterday I ran across a piece by Michael van der Galien called Christian Conservatives Against Torture that appeared on the PoliGazette website. 

We have all heard a lot about Christian conservatives in recent years. We know the standard talking points by now. They are radically right, in favor of a total war on Islam, intolerant even hateful towards those with unorthodox sexual preferences (hey, is that the political correct expression of the day or what?), and support torture.

Or not

In Mr. van der Galien's piece he links to an excellent piece by David P. Gushee at the Christianity Today website where Gushee authored a piece called 5 Reasons That Torture is Always Wrong. 

Say what? Conservatives against torture? But I thought according to the media all conservatives favor torture? Don't they?

I also ran across several pieces by conservative Rod Dreher where he talked about Bush lying to us about torture and about how those who tortured should be held accountable.  

One thing that nobody should ever be permitted to say again, after reading these memos: "The United States didn't torture." When President Bush said it, he was a liar. The only question is whether or not he was lying to himself, so that he could sleep at night, or consciously lying to the public for reasons of political expediency.

[Snip]

I disagree. Those who approved of torture should be made to defend what they did. The public should be forced to confront these things, and to learn what our government is capable of, so that we might prevent it in the future. I'm inclined to former Reagan Justice official Bruce Fein's view.

[Snip]

How is it that even after the CIA station chief on the ground told his superiors that the terrorist being tortured had said all he knew that the CIA kept on torturing the guy? What does that tell us about what we were really up to? Was it really a "necessary evil"?

That can't be undone, obviously, but if we don't try to understand how and why that happened, what will our refusal to look at our deeds, and what was done in our name, say about the American soul? "Yes, but they are terrorists," is not much of a defense.

What a conservative calling for accountability on torture? But that can't be or I would have heard about it on TV, wouldn't I?

Mr. Dreher also alerted his readers to another gentleman by the name of Mark Shea, a social conservative, who has been regularly posting critical commentary about torture on his blog. I visited his website last night and found a piece called That's the thing about committing war crimes and this one The Awesome Human Capacity for Rationalization of Evil where he says this:

[Snip}

So, according to the Rubber Hose Right it's *not* torture *because* it was done 183 times. Now, I recall back in the day, when torture apologists were explaining that it was not torture because it was so brutal and effective that KSM cracked instantly. "A couple of dunking and it was all over. What's the big deal?" Now we are told that he didn't crack instantly by the same apologists for torture--and that this proves it's not a big deal too. 

And this:

[Snip]

But yeah. Sure. Waterboarding somebody 183 times. That's not torture. 

Enjoy the bubble.

Today I went back to visit his blog again to see what other pieces he wrote and I found one called:

The Red Cross Torture Report 

Now and then, there has been talk of prosecuting the Bushies who ordered the creation of our torture regime and the commission of war crimes. I'd be completely in favor of that since I'm one of those people who thinks the US remains a nation of laws under God even when it is inconvenient to the fortunes of Movement Conservatives.

However, as some of the Left are now discovering, the big problem facing those who would like to pursue this course is not primarily GOP opposition (though it, of course, exists) but rather fellow lefties (including their very own President) who, having now seized the One Ring as suddenly reluctant to just give up all that reckless unilateral power.

I haven't gone through his entire archives but I'd be willing to bet that there are other pieces on torture that I've missed. But the point is that he's a social conservative and his view is not represented in the media just like Dreher, van der Galien and Gushee's views are not represented in the establishment media.

Quite some time ago I also ran across a piece by Becky Akers, a member of the John Birch Society, entitled Mainstream's Media Moral Meltdown where Ms. Akers advocated for accountability for Bush administration war crimes. I even sent several members of our media a link to her piece but because it also criticized the media I guess they weren't interested in it for multiple reasons.

We've also seen quite a few pieces  by conservative Bruce Fein, who eloquently argues for accountability for both the Bush administration and the Obama administration.

With the exception of Bruce Fein, who appeared on TV a couple of times and had a few op-ed's published,  we don't see these other  conservative voices represented in the establishment media.  All we see are the conservatives who represent, as Mark Shea calls them, the Rubber hose Republicans - people like David Rivkin, Andy Card, Dick Cheney and a whole host of other low level professional politicos (the usual suspects) who appear on cable talk shows. 

Recently we saw two pieces in the WSJ where you had Mukasey and Hayden team up and Rivkin and Casey team up to argue for torture. 

Just like in the photo above, where it takes two men to fell this tree, maybe anti-torture conservatives and liberals need to start teaming up in order to take down the media barriers that prevent all of our voices from being represented on the issue of torture? Maybe it's time for anti-torture conservatives and liberals to team up and start demanding accountability from our Department of Justice and inclusion in the national conversation on torture.

Update:  Gene Healy at the Cato Institute is clearly not buying David Rivkin's claim that we didn't torture. Check out his latest piece: Of Course It Was Torture

Update 2: QuietObserver posted an interesting post at Daily Kos about Shepherd Smith. The post includes this video that shows Shepherd Smith and former Judge Napolitano on Fox News appearing to be challenging the "Rubber Hose Republicans" and hopefully in the coming days they will do even more of it.

torture

Hiding the Truth From the Public

Photo: The super massive black hole at the center of our Galaxy

Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent blog post yesterday about how the views about torture of a large portion of Americans are not represented in the establishment media.  Glenn sites various recent polls that show large numbers of Americans favor investigations into the Bush torture program even though our beltway establishment does not. He then uses an example of what is typically shown on TV whenever the issue is discussed. 

The example Greenwald used was the panel discussion on this past Sunday's Meet the Press that supposedly "debated' the torture memos. As Glenn rightfully points out it really wasn't a debate because all of the people on the panel held the same "beltway insiders" view that there should be no investigation or prosecution for torture even though that view is completely at odds with the views of a majority of Americans.

Consider yesterday's Meet the Press panel discussion of this issue involving David Gregory and five exceedingly typical Beltway insiders -- The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein, Fortune's Nina Easton, Time's Rick Stengel, former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and former "moderate" Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr.  That's three ostensibly non-partisan journalists, a right-wing fanatic, and a New Republic/DLC Democrat from Tennessee whose career was built on proving how much he embraces GOP policies -- that's called "diversity of views" in Establishment Media World.  

Exactly as one would expect, they were all in full and complete agreement that there must be no investigations or prosecutions.  There was not a syllable uttered that political officials should be treated the same as ordinary Americans when they got caught breaking the law.  As always, only the suffocatingly narrow Beltway consensus is heard in our political debates, even when huge percentages of Americans reject it

In addition to the media panels, where everyone agrees that there should be no investigation or prosecution, that Glenn correctly documented yesterday, there is also a second type of establishment media discussion about this issue, that while appearing to give voice to alternative views on this issue, actually promotes the same inside-the-beltway conclusion that there should be no accountability for torture.

This alternative, media approved discussion about torture uses a "crossfire" type setting. The typical "discussion"  always has a "conservative" pitted against a "liberal." The conservative always argues for using torture and the liberal always argues against it. Usually there will be either a third person added to this mix or the "moderator" will themselves act as the third person that supposedly represents the "centrist" viewpoint, when in reality they represent the "inside-the-beltway" viewpoint.  The "centrist" is always portrayed as the "reasonable" member of the trio. They usually argue against using torture (not always) and they always argue that there should be no legal accountability for torture.

In these discussions the use of factual information is not only not required but the more extreme and factually ignorant your rhetoric the better our media seems to like it. In fact, having a guest with an extreme view on torture, like CNN did recently when they used convicted felon, G. Gordon Liddy, they guarantee that the rhetoric will be so extreme and factually false that the guest on the left (in the CNN example Joan Walsh from Salon.com) will usually end up having to abandon their own argument in order to take time out to counter the crazy off-the-wall comments coming from the radical torture apologist guest on the right.  

By having both the guests going at it tooth and nail arguing over red herrings the viewer frequently loses sight of the real argument (this CNN example is actually quite mild compared to what we normally see). This, of course,  is what the media wants to achieve all along because then their "centrist" can look oh, so reasonable compared to the squabbling guests.  So what does the establishment media hope to achieve by setting up these crossfire type exchanges?

They want the viewers to believe: 

1. All conservatives favor using torture and are not for politically "vindictive"  prosecutions  

2. All liberals are against using torture but they are for politically "vindictive" prosecutions

3. Centrists are against using torture but are also against politically "vindictive" prosecutions

4. All conservatives are crazy torturers

5. All liberals are petty, unreasonable, smug and "vindictive" scolds

6. Centrists are rational adults who are reasonable and not "vindictive"

These shows aren't real debates about the issues any more than the panel discussions, where everyone agrees with each other are real discussions. These are nothing more than a cynical marketing ploy used by our media in an effort to protect the status quo by selling the American people on the idea that while torture may be bad we shouldn't hold any officials legally accountable for it because that's nothing but political payback - "liberal score-settling" or as President Obama and his people claim - Retribution. 

All of this brings me to what I'd originally planned on writing this blog post about. I've noticed for a long time that our establishment media has tried to sell the public on the false idea that the torture issue is all about liberals vs. conservatives, left vs. right  or Republicans vs. Democrats. They are doing this so that citizens of all political persuasions, who are horrified about what our government has done in our names, will not band together to force our government to hold these war criminals accountable.  Our media and political elite want us to continue squabbling with each other, just like the guests do on the "crossfire" type shows, in order to divide us so that our power to demand accountability will be diluted. That's why they don't want us to know that there are conservatives who favor accountability (more on that in my next post) or liberals who don't advocate  prosecutions of Bush administration officials just because they hate Republicans. That's also why they don't want us to know that there are more people who favor accountability for torture than those who don't. 

Our establishment media and political elites know that if we know the truth about all of these things that there will be no way for them to stop us from forcing our government to hold our leaders accountable. They also know that once we stop viewing each other as the "enemy" that we will all discover who our "real" enemies have been all of these years. And once that happens then the chummy club of insiders, who have had a stranglehold on our country for decades, will no longer be running the show and calling the shots. And the thought of having a true democracy positively scares them to death.