09.15.06
moment of clarity
it’s all about the spin, folks….
i’m listening, right now, to Bush lie to the White House press corps, and would be outraged at the absolute cowardice of these flacks, but i realize that the whole thing is theatre, and the questions asked serve only to prompt Bush to spit out the next KarlRovian talking point…
if it wasn’t part of the ongoing Nazification of ameriKKKa, my reaction would be… grudging admiration…
it’s not about justifying torture — it’s "providing clarity": our torturers, er… interrogators are "honest people… professionals", who simply want to know that when they subject people to sleep depravation, waterboarding, mock executions, beatings and what have you, that they won’t be charged with war crimes…
why not? brilliantly, they’ve moved some supposedly dangerous folks to Gitmo (from CIA torture camps that never existed until Dubya announced that they’ve been closed) and now, whenever the question of crossing the line between questioning and torturing someone, every member of the Fourth Reich will point to these "cold-blooded killers" and make the claim that "we have to get information from the people who took part of the planning"…
…so let’s ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people subjected to "questioning" by our "professionals" are not only NOT cold-blooded killers, but have yet to even be charged with anything!!! so, even if you accept the "we’ve gotta lean hard on the bad guys to get important information" argument, which i do not, what does that have to do with beating the living shit out of, and in some cases killing, people who have yet to be accused of anything???
now he’s chattering about how "you cannot ask a young professional1 to violate the law"… the "program" will not go forward… a reporter is challenging him on this, and Dubya literally shouts him down, claiming that the "most important point" is that he, George Bush, says the point must go forward, the law will clarify that torture is okay, shut up, next question…
so there’s the strategy, right there spelt clearly — ignore all objections, because the program WILL GO FORWARD, period… the Supreme Court apparently only meant that we had to be clear about what torture we’d allow – it didn’t object to the fact that our methods may be illegal, simply vague and unclear…
and, with the exception of David Gregory who tried to point out2 that, by redefining the Geneva Conventions common article three, we expose our troops to being tortured by enemies using a "tit for tat" approach, every single reporter in the White House press corps just sits there and eats this shit like caviar…
…the madmen in Tweedle-D.C. will do as they like, and negate logic with slickly phrased emotional counter spin…. objections will no longer be engaged, and these fuckers have their talking points prepared so far in advance, the arguments are framed by their agenda before the first question is formed…
…listening to this press conference real-time as i blog this, it’s all quite clear to me now… and i don’t know about you, but it scares the living shit out of me…
- This is a classic KarlRovian trick; tug on the emotions by referring to a CIA interrogator who’s torturing someone as a "youth" to invoke sympathy and deflect outrage [back]
- You have to click this link, and watch this for yourself: Bush literally shouts David down when he tries to get a straight answer. He actually has the gall to say "The point I just made is the most important point."
None dare call it arrogance. Click the link… see for yourself. [back]