I’m feeling out of whack today and need a break from blogging. Too much excitement this week, I guess. I’m just going to suggest a topic for discussion and try to get back into the groove tomorrow.
Earlier this week the President just about bit Matt Lauer’s head off when Lauer asked about “interrogation.” Today, Digby says, Bush got pissed at David Gregory. Crooks & Liars has the video.
Here’s a bit of the transcript:
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
Mr. President, critics of your proposed bill on interrogation rules say there’s another important test. These critics include John McCain, who you’ve mentioned several times this morning.
And that test is this: If a CIA officer, paramilitary or special operations soldier from the United States were captured in Iran or North Korea and they were roughed up and those governments said, “Well, they were interrogated in accordance with our interpretation of the Geneva Conventions,” and then they were put on trial and they were convicted based on secret evidence that they were not able to see, how would you react to that as commander in chief?
BUSH: My reaction is, is that if the nations such as those you name adopted the standards within the Detainee Detention Act, the world would be better. That’s my reaction.
Seems to me the President told Gregory that the world would be a better place if enemies who capture U.S. soldiers could torture them, try them on secret evidence, and execute them.
Is that not what he’s saying? Or do I need to take more aspirin?
Anyway, in both videos Bush seemed right on the edge of blowing a gasket. Digby calls him “angry and petulant.” I would add “wound a little too tight.” As of right now it seems the three Republican renegades — Warner, Graham, and McCain — are not yet budging. If Prince Pissant doesn’t get what he wants, his handlers might want to get him on some meds, fast, or at the next presser he’s going to throw an all-out kicking-and-screaming tantrum.
And wouldn’t that be amusing?
Without meaning to imply anything kinky or gross, wouldn’t “biting off Matt Lauer’s head” be like eating a miniature marshmallow?
I love it when Bush has a tantrum. It reminds people that he is not someone you’d want to have a beer with.
Just how much ‘torture’ can Dumbya take? Did he ever go through a Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion ( SERE ) course while he was a Texas National Guardsman?
I’d LOVE to have a beer with Bushie….I’d tell him a few dumb Texan jokes, maybe a few “Yo Mama’s so fat” jokes, then get into a little good natured arm wrestlin’. It’d be a fun time.
But he wouldn’t like what I’d have to say afterwards.I commented long ago at our Maha’s site that Bush would be in a straight jacket when all is said and done. It’s getting near that time…………
I feel Colin Powell is back to set a few things straight, things are about to get interesting.
In a LOT of cases, these are NOT people we picked up on the battlefield. We are picking people up, without any warrant or judicial oversight. These are NOT convicted terrorists; they are suspected terrorists. We are basing the abduction on intelligence from the same folks who guaranteed WMD in Iraq. That should be enough to give you pause; shouldn’t SOMEBODY in addition to the administration, be looking over the list of WHO we have and WHY? (The Justice department reports to the President. They are not candidates. I am suggesting the Judicial Branch or Congress, or an International Body.)
We (the US government) are NOT admitting who we have, or where, or how we got them, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention, or International Law regarding detention of criminal suspects. Perhaps, this is what Colin Powell was thinking about when he suggested we are losing any claim to the high moral ground.
If we ‘picked them up on the battlefield’, then they are soldiers and covered by the Geneva Convention. If they were abducted in the middle of the night because an informant with no evidence told the CIA Joe Schmoe is a terrorist, then International Law applies; he should be granted the rights of an accused criminal.
I am not soft on the ‘rights’ of convicted terrorists. We have one (and only one) of those in a maximum security prison related to 9/11. He can rot in maximum security. But ‘accused’ is different from ‘convicted’, and stripping a person of all human rights at the stage of detention is barbaric. Getting Congress to pass a law sanctioning it does not make it ‘civilized’.
I do want to address your question, Maha, even if it was rhetorical. Our Fearless Leader was caught between a rock and a hard place with the question. King George could not ADMIT that the proposed ‘clarification’ of Article 3, will authorize ‘roughing up’ detainees and convicting them in trials where they can not see the evidence used to convict them. He could not DENY that that’s what the law would do, either. So he bluffed, suggesting he would like it if ‘they’ used our ‘high’ standard. A specific discussion of the contents of that bill, will be fatal to it. He knows that.
The Blogosphere is becoming a key ingredient to making the discussion happen. Kudos to Maha & Company.
I caught some of today’s press conference on NPR. Geez, Bush just kept getting louder, as though he thinks that spitting memorized words out makes him seem ‘tough’.
He sounded desperate at one point in his screech, er…in his speech when he forcefully said, “You have to understand…..blah,blah, blah [more memorized arguments]” When he said that, I pictured a puffed up grade schooler spoiled and sheltered from the real world. I suppose he thinks his faulty logic is supposed to trump everybody else’s wisdom……if only he could force others to ‘understand’.
Well, I think lots of folks do understand reality a lot better than George W. Bush. I hope that America is increasingly ashamed of its tortured-logic President.
I watched Bush’s response to David Gregory’s question and I couldn’t believe how Bush tried to bullshit his way through the answer. Bush appeared way closer to a case study in mental illness than an honest attempt to dodge a question. I think Bush is on the ropes and desperate, and that his handlers should keep him out of public view and only allow him to make scripted speeches. I’ve never seen him looks so bad as he did today. He’s disconnected from reality, big time.
Well, maybe Bush and Condi are correct that we should “narrow” the standards of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to eliminate vague interpretations. Who knows, maybe it’s just us Westerners with our sexually inhibited Victorian values who consider being sodomized with a glow stick an assualt on human dignity.
Bush has his back to the wall and is trying to force into legislation what he and his co-conspirators have been doing illegally. In other words, he is trying to cover his (and their) ass from prosecution for war crimes. His conduct and disrespectful remarks to the media this morning was nothing less than shameful. If the United States can “try” Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity, it seems to me that we can try Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the Director of the CIA, and generals Casey and Abizaid for war crimes as well.
We can only hope that the Republican Party can somehow find a way to purge itself of the evil that has taken control of it.
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I think their backs are to the wall and we are seeing alot of desperation that we have all anticipated long ago. The price of gas is mysteriously down( on the news tonight the ‘analyst’ said it was because the world was peaceful and no katrina yea right -I certainly don’t drive less because of the date either- that’s a load of bull) We are seeing 5 hour commercial free primetime propaganda movies, a host of legislation that grants Bush special powers and retroactively exonerates the whole crew, low gas after being stiffed for 2 years- it went up after the last election, more old Osama tapes magically appear( since we seized alot of hard drives in Afghanistan and Pakistan I’m sure the intelligence community has plenty of Osama dvds ready to roll out, just alot of pre election garbage designed to pump up the Republicans and keep certain butts out of jail just in case they do get voted out.
WHO WILL WIN?!?!?
For the last two and a half years, Bush has had bouts of incoherence that last a few minutes. His performance on Friday had those incoherent moments. I was watching part of it on C-Span and the reporters were trying to be respectful but many of them had dumbfounded looks. It was clear the president wasn’t making sense to them.
One thing Democrats should consider is putting together a good half hour of these incoherent moments for everyone to see and hear.
Was that speech today from the Rose Garden? I hope so because the essence of roses would be the only thing that could cover up the stench resulting from the garbage that spewed from Bush’s mouth. His ‘give me what I want or I’ll take my toys and go home’ attitude exposed him for the dry-drunk hot-head that he really is. At first I thought that his handlers didn’t expect him to veer so far from the scripted talking points when he threatened to discontinue the program (whatever that program is – after all it’s classified) if Congress doesn’t pass his proposed legislation to change the Geneva Convention. But then again, maybe it was scripted – it does sound Rovian. You won’t define what torture is, so we stopped any interrogations and therefore you are to blame when the next attack happens. That’ll teach ya!
The saddest part of this will be if it works come November.
I’m delighted though, that Colin Powell is finally giving as good as he got.
The threat of prosecution for war crimes is hanging over the heads of all of the Bush and Blair administration members.
Bush is VERY concerned about this as evidenced by his angry performance.
As the song goes,”There’s got to be a morning after.”