Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has chaired the Senate’s Intelligence Committee for five years. So when she suggested last month that investigators should make public a report on the U.S.’s interrogation techniques because it would “ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted,†one might have seen it as the strong words and fair assessment of a person who has deep experience on the issue.
But on Fox News Sunday this week, Bush-era National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden suggested that Feinstein actually encouraged the public release of the interrogation techniques report because of her emotions.
Citing specifically Feinstein’s line about not using such techniques again, Hayden told Fox News Sunday host Chis Wallace, “Now that sentence that, motivation for the report, Chris, may show deep emotional feeling on part of the Senator. But I don’t think it leads you to an objective report.â€
I’m sure I speak for other female persons when I say that “You’re just being emotional” is what a man says to a woman when she has just told him something he doesn’t want to deal with or even think about. He can’t actually respond, so he dismisses her as “emotional.” Of course, he is being “logical.” Like men aren’t the ones who start bar fights.
See also Booman on why some people need to be in priso.
The next thing you know you libtard wusses will be whining that waterboarding, electroshock, the rack, and the strappado constitute torture. It’s a dangerous world out there and we have to man up!
Hayden reminds me of Bunsen Honeydew…..But with a sinister character.
What’s a strappado? Cancel that. I don’t think I want to know.
While you are right, Barbara, that dismissing Feinstein or any woman as emotional is a dodge by men to put women in their place, the technique is much more broad. If you can’t discuss the message, change the subject to the messenger. Why is Al Gore ever the subject when discussing climate change – as if global change is disproved if Al doesn’t live in a solar heated home.
I’m not saying I haven’t ever attacked the messenger – Limbaugh and Beck are so revolting – but I have never attacked them as a ploy to avoid discussing the message. That’s what’s happened here and a million times before with great success. We need to avoid the compulsion to defend or discuss the messenger and change the subject back to the subject – in this case, torture.
Hysterical, I tell ya. Hysterical!
maha,
Calm down. You’re being so emotional. 😉
Hayden, and his bosses, should be in some prison for war criminals somewhere – for life – after a fair trial.
And frankly, they can be as emotional as they want.
Hell, we’d all chip in for all the tissues they’ll want to cry in. We’ll even pay for them – FOR LIFE!!!
OT, and on a very sad note, the great Mickey Rooney has died, at 93.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/06/mickey-rooney-dead_n_5102575.html
Hmm…it seems to me, when my wife gets all emotional and weepy, it is a sign of things to come…I have learned after thirty years of marriage, to duck and hide…some women do very well when “emotional”…and some don’t…I love wimmen, but only fear ONE…
SAWEET JAYZOOS!!!
Alan King was right!
Even at 93, Mickey Rooney was “survived by wife!”
If you young folks don’t get what I just wrote, here a snippet from that GREAT routine:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=alan+king+survived+by+his+wife&qpvt=alan+king+survived+by+his+wife&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=A76C7373DDD0D78840F1A76C7373DDD0D78840F1
And yes, Alan King was, himself, “survived by wife!!!”
I guess the reason men want to pay women less, is to get even with them before they die!
I had no idea Mickey Rooney was still alive. Nor that several of his contemporaries regarded him as the greatest actor in Hollywood. Well before my time.
OT, great New Yorker cover showing the triumph of Obamacare over Republicans.
OT, ShowTime has produced a major 9 part series on climate change, which will be shown beginning April 13. You can view the entire first episode here. This looks like a blockbuster event.
I remember how the country’s attitude toward gays shifted over the last couple of decades. IMO, it began with gays appearing on television. Here’s hoping this series can be as transformative.
It’s best to leave the business of torturing up to us men folk. The Lord didn’t design the little ladies to handle the rough stuff. Women should just tend to the business in the kitchen and in the bedroom the way the Lord intended.
Re: attacking the messenger, I was once quite fond of pointing out that I did not engage in argumentum ad hominem. I never told people to ignore the argument of the dishonest, incompetent, idiot *because* it was presented by a dishonest, incompetent idiot – I pointed out the flaws in the argument – and, in addition, engaged in extraneous (but satisfying) insults. This, I pointed out, was unkind, and potentially rude, but *not* a flaw in my argument.
I was known as a pedant, but I was sure that my information was over the age of consent before loving it.
Apropos of nothing in particular, strappado and strippaggio were linked in my brain until today.
(The latter is a method (in Italian) for tasting olive oils. That linkage made the first comment *very* puzzling.)
It’s kind of disturbing, actually, that Hayden doesn’t consider torture to be an emotional subject. To my mind a “deep emotional feeling” (which, speaking of logic, is redundant) is entirely appropriate when you’re talking about waterboarding. That’s one of the reasons you don’t do it.
When it comes to attacking the messenger where torture is concerned, that’s the only viable and reasonable approach in dealing with the subject of torture and the animals who advocate its use.. To engage in the merits of torture or argue the pros and cons of torture is pure insanity. I have no qualms about attacking any asshole who would even give a toehold to entertaining the use of torture. To my mind, once a person can even think that torture is an acceptable practice they have become detached from humanity. And they should be treated as such.
The Bush administration was chock full of psychopaths. And the damage they’ve done is beyond measure. They’ve put a major shit stain on America. I hope the misery they’ve sown comes back to them ten fold and pursues them into the grave.
One thing is clear…Those who want their country back will never get it back because our government openly embraced the use of torture.
For what it’s worth:
My father-in-law died in 2000, so I can’t get his insights into the post-911 world. Often, he and I used to sit up talking over a brandy or two. He was a flag rank naval intelligence officer and a consummate professional.
One night he described some of the training requirements for his position, which included SERE training. “The worst part†according to his experience, was what I later came to know as waterboarding. He confided that he didn’t think he would have been able to withstand it, except that he knew that it was part of a training exercise and that medical personnel were at hand in case of a mishap. “The navy had invested a lot of time and money in me. They wouldn’t want to lose that.â€
He was very clear that torture is not only morally corrosive, but yields unreliable information. There is simply no defense for it. As one from the days of a professional soldier, he was very deeply disgusted by it.
So, as you say, attacking the messenger is the only hope card they’ve got.
maha: Minor typo: “in priso.”
If I were lied to and spied on then I too might show some strong emotions. Get mad, Dianne, and get even.
“show deep emotional feeling on part of the Senator”
I think what Hayden meant to say is: How the hell is the Chertoff Group (for which I am a principle) gonna get any more war fightin and people spyin work if we start considering consequences before we act!