Torture and the Pelosi Diversion
By John Parisella - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 13 Comments
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has never been one to shy away from a good fight. This time, she has entered a battle that is very much of her own making. Her reversals and confusing explanations have shifted the debate from whether former Bush-Cheney officials should be investigated and possibly prosecuted for their roles in the torturing of terrorism suspects to what she knew and when she found out about it. Give the Republicans credit for adroitly exploiting the diversion after the Dick Cheney media offensive was clearly becoming a liability for the GOP. Nothing better than to put the Speaker on the defensive and shift the debate away from their increasingly disturbing record on torture.
This being said, the torture debate is only heating up. The evidence increasingly seems to suggest that torture was used to link 9/11 to Iraq and thereby justify the invasion. There is now evidence that torture was going on while Bush was telling the nation the exact opposite. What really matters is whether the US government knowingly contravened domestic law, the Constitution or the Geneva Conventions. Either of those scenarios would be enough to justify a special non-partisan or bipartisan commission to get to the truth.
This weekend, Cheney’s daughter Liz referred to Obama’s actions on national security as un-Americain. Later in the week, Cheney will once again justify the actions of his administration on “enhanced interrogation techniques” before a right wing, partisan crowd at the American Enterprise Institute. But there is nothing quite as effective as using Pelosi to make Americans forget the real perpetrators of torture and the extent to which it was used.
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The Cheney-Limbaugh Ticket
By John Parisella - Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 12 Comments
The impression that is emerging in the minds of voters is that Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh are running the Republican party—not in terms of electoral politics, but in leadership terms. Nothing could please the Obama people more than being attacked in the media by a former vice president adamantly defending “enhanced interrogation methods” or being castigated daily on the radio by Rush Limbaugh. Such a hypothetical Republican ticket represents at best 25% of the electorate. If you are Democratic National Committee president Tim Kaine, with less than two years to go before the mid-term elections, you cannot ask for a better portrait of the current Republican leadership than Cheney-Limbaugh.
Cheney’s media tour, undertaken under the guise of talking about the lives that were saved by the Bush administration’s policies, has overshadowed legitimate policy differences between the GOP and the Democrats. This comes at a crucial moment, too: the budget’s details are emerging and Obama will soon be proposing a nominee for the Supreme Court. The ongoing sideshow over what Nancy Pelosi knew about torture has only brought greater spotlight on the issue itself. We now know that the torture began six months before the memos that authorized it were written. There is increasing evidence that laws were broken, that the constitution was violated and, possibly, that war crimes were committed. Moreover, FBI interrogators and infiltrators have testified before a congressional subcommittee to argue that torture does not work. And yet, Cheney and his daughter are claiming that America is less safe under the Obama presidency—a serious charge that cannot go unchallenged. The defense secretary under both Bush and Obama, Robert Gates, strongly disputes this claim, as does defense hawk and McCain supporter, Democratic senator Joe Lieberman. If Cheney wants a debate on torture, to borrow a favourite phrase of George W. Bush’s, “bring it on.”
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Limbaugh Over Powell
By John Parisella - Monday, May 11, 2009 at 2:34 PM - 39 Comments
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he’d take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell in an interview on Face The Nation this Sunday. Unbelievable!
Never mind that Colin Powell is an authentic American hero of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars; that he served his nation honorably as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Defense Secretary, and Secretary of State during successive Republican administrations; and that he campaigned for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2000 and 2004. According to Cheney, Powell is no longer a Republican because he supported Barack Obama for president. Contrast this with Obama welcoming Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman back into the Democratic fold after Lieberman supported the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008.
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The Debate On Torture
By John Parisella - Monday, April 27, 2009 at 4:50 PM - 10 Comments
With fears of a potential swine flu epidemic sweeping the world, and with the report cards coming in on Obama’s first 100 days, you would think the debate on the torture memos from the Bush–Cheney era would be off the table. It is possible that White House officials believed Obama’s preference that we learn from them and move on would be enough to circumscribe the issue and carry the day. But they were living in fantasyland if they believed that this dramatic news item would be a one week wonder. In fact, it was the president’s about face on prosecution that kept the news story going and will probably make it a dominant issue throughout the next 100 days.
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'We hope that you will find the report useful'
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 1:15 PM - 5 Comments
Mark Danner has filed a second piece for the New York Review of Books on the torture that took place under the Bush administration. The Review has also posted the Red Cross report that documented the abuse. Danner’s first piece, published a few weeks ago, is here.
For the sake of comparison, here is the affidavit of Omar Khadr filed with the Canadian Supreme Court as to his treatment while in American custody.
While the matter of his child soldier status has made for an interesting debate, it is probably tangential to the central question of his detainment: regardless of guilt or innocence, has his treatment violated the moral, ethical and legal standards of our society?
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When Enough Is Enough
By John Parisella - Monday, March 16, 2009 at 3:39 PM - 13 Comments
Two stories have dominated American news coverage in recent days: the first involved a public condemnation of the excessive rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh by a prominent and respected GOP operative; the second featured Jon Stewart’s frustration with the quality of reporting on a popular business news TV show. The spat between Limbaugh and David Frum speaks to a theme this blog has touched upon in recent weeks—namely, that the Republican party must come to grips with a new reality and start work on becoming a viable alternative to Obama and the Democrats. This is essential for a sound democracy. The showdown between Stewart and Jim Cramer, on the other hand, put a spotlight on news shows that try to justify the erroneous and contradictory information they reported regarding investment choices. What both media events have in common is that they are likely to become defining moments for both the future of the GOP and the coverage of the economic crisis hitting America and beyond. I believe it was about time both conflicts occurred, and I would like to add another ongoing source of frustration that needs to be addressed: the public resurfacing of Dick Cheney. But first, let us deal with the Republican infighting over Rush Limbaugh.
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Does Michael Ignatieff condone torture?
By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 11:59 PM - 97 Comments
If Michael Ignatieff is a ninny, he is a strange kind of tyrannical ninny. At least insofar as his critics persist in repeating two points about him: (1) He endorsed the war in Iraq, and (2) He condones torture.
The first is indisputable, and Mr. Ignatieff has made great and public effort to explain himself in that regard.
The second has always seem a little less straightforward, but if it is to persist as an issue, we might as well try to make sense of it. If only so I can figure out what to think. Continue…
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High crimes and misdemeanours
By Paul Wells - Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 4:58 PM - 57 Comments
The New York Times advocates prosecution for U.S. government officials who permitted or ordered torture of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The editorial itself is demure about who that entails:
A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse.
But if such a prosecutor were appointed, I don’t know how he could stop below the Vice President’s office in searching for the “others involved.” And maybe I’m being demure when I stop at Cheney.
Why? This excerpt from the editorial makes part of the case:
Alberto Mora, the former Navy general counsel who protested the abuses, told the Senate committee that “there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq — as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat — are, respectively, the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.”
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Because as you know, Berlusconi is key
By Paul Wells - Monday, August 25, 2008 at 2:31 PM - 0 Comments
Dick Cheney to visit Georgia and other countries in the region. Because he just likes to be helpful.
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Dick Cheney is not Darth Vader, but he may be a marine crustacean.
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, June 27, 2008 at 12:41 PM - 0 Comments
Or so it was proposed in this illuminating exchange from yesterday’s hearing of the House Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, in which Rep. Steve Cohen asks David Addington, the chief of staff and former counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, whether the vice president belongs to the legislative or executive branch. (Because the vice president’s official constitutional role is as president of the Senate, Cheney has argued that he is not a member of the executive branch and therefore he is not covered by certain oversight laws.)
Addington:Sir, perhaps the best that can be said is that the vice president belongs neither to the executive nor to the legislative branch but is “attached by the Constitution to the latter,” closed quote. That’s from two legal opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice dated March 9th, 1961 and April, I believe it’s 18th, 1961…
<snip>
Cohen: So he’s a member of the legislative branch?
Addington: No, I said “attached by the Constitution to the latter.” He is not a member of the legislative branch because the Constitution says that the Congress consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Constitution further says that the Senate consists of senators and the House of Representatives consists of representatives, and he is neither a senator nor–
Cohen: But he’s attached to the legislative branch? Continue…
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Oh, those Republicans
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, May 30, 2008 at 2:41 PM - 0 Comments
My first thought about the Scott McLellan memoir as cash-ploy was :” How come it was published by Public Affairs?” They have a reputation for modest book advances — even the publisher Peter Osnos admits it:
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Aliens ate press secretary's brain
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 12:21 PM - 0 Comments
Or at least that’s what it must seem like to Scott McLellan’s former colleagues.
It’s not often you see someone go from standing on a podium every day defending an administration to turning on a dime and calling his longtime bosses deceitful war-mongers.
In his new book, “What Happened,” he also confirms what some people have long suspected: Dick Cheney is actually magic.
