Here is the first part of my response to the disgusting Kinsley column.

Don't let Kinsley fool you into believing that everyone is equally guilty for torture because it’s just not true. Like most of our establishment media personalities, Kinsley, is projecting his own guilt onto the public in order to mitigate his own miserable failings as a journalist. He knows in his heart that he didn't use his powerful position in the media to inform the citizens about what was really going on about torture. He also knows that when the Abu Ghraib story broke right before the 2004 election, our establishment media, almost to a person, was uncritically repeating the Bush administration claim that this was just the result of "a few bad apples." We also heard that this was just a political stunt designed to take down Bush before the election. And yet, Kinsley wants us all to believe that our citizens, who get most of their news from TV, are the real culprits responsible for torture because, in effect, they should have known that what the media told them was a lie and therefore, they should have voted Bush out of office if they weren't for torture.

While a lot of our citizens can certainly be blamed for being stupid enough to unquestioningly believe our establishment media (especially TV) and our political leaders, they most certainly can't be blamed for torture if they relied upon the media coverage of torture prior to the 2004 election. The only people who can be blamed for torture, other than the Bush officials, are those who knew the truth back then and did nothing or those who continue to do nothing.

Did you hear that, Mr. Kinsley?

For the rest of this piece to here:

http://democracity.blogspot.com/2009/05/michael-kinsley-wants-to-leave-public.html

Link also at sig.

Retired Military Patriot, wow the Stewart/May debate was terrible. John Stewart obviously doesn't know enough about the issue to debate it. Cliff May is insufferable. He lied through the whole debate and then brought up the same crap that Pat Buchanan tried with Turley. Because Turley is well versed on the issue he was able to slap Pat down but Stewart was not as well equipped. How sad. Nope, not one of Stewart's better momennts.

Hey, Jim, now that you're almost famous are you going to still talk with us. LOL

Congratulations!

I hadn't heard much at all about the recently released NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll or the NYT/CBS poll so I did two blog posts about these polls. Both of the polls have some interesting information about torture.

http://democracity.blogspot.com/2009/04/nbcwall-street-journal-poll-torture.html

http://democracity.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-torture.html

Mr. Keillor, I hope after reading the comments here that you do some soul searching about your opinion. The majority of us who are working so tirelessly to ensure that there is accountability for these war crimes are doing so not to seek political payback but because we love our country and don't want this to ever happen again.

Our country decided long ago that the best way to deter crime is to provide appropriate punishment. Those punishments should be the same for all citizens. When we only punish our public officials in the court of public opinion and not in a court of law we ensure that they or others like them will commit those same crimes again. We can't allow that to happen - not this time - the crimes are much too great.

After being too angry and depressed to make a blog post today I finally published one. Link at sig.

http://democracity.blogspot.com/2009/04/artifices-of-designing-men.html

Late last night I read the Cohen piece then this morning I read the Friedman piece then I came here and got pointed to the Keillor piece. Needless to say I'm angry and depressed all at the same time. I didn't even write a blog post today. Everything I started, I couldn't finish. Looks like it's a day off for me. I need to recharge my batteries busying myself with some of the more mundane things in life in order to forget about the important things that are breaking my heart.

"He even gets specific suggesting that if all those lawyers weren't busy score-settling they'd be building trains in the Midwest instead."

When Keillor mentioned the trains in his piece it brought to my mind all those people who used to dismiss Mussolini's crimes by saying that at least he made the trains run on time.

I just read the Keillor post and my head is about to explode from doing so. It makes you wonder after seeing so many of these "perversions of our law" pieces written by these media personalities if we've been taken over by pod people, just like what happened in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This is just nuts. What is wrong with these people!

This is what I added at the end of my comment about Keillor's comments.

After reading this piece I find it ironic that your new book is entitled "liberty." You obviously don't know the first thing about liberty, sir.

“"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men." -Samuel Adams”