http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ebbd768-cdfc-11dd-8b30-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

General “Buck” Turgidson: “Ahem . . .” The Duty Officer asked General Ripper to confirm the fact that he had issued the go code, and he said: “Yes gentlemen, they are on their way in, and no one can bring them back. For the sake of our country, and our way of life, I suggest you get the rest of SAC in after them. Otherwise, we will be totally destroyed by Red retaliation. Uh, my boys will give you the best kind of start, 1,400 megatons worth, and you sure as hell won’t stop them now, uhuh. Uh, so let’s get going, there’s no other choice. God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural . . . fluids. God bless you all” and he hung up.

President Merkin Muffley: “General Turgidson! When you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring!”

General “Buck” Turgidson: “Well, I, uh, don’t think it’s quite fair to condemn a whole programme because of a single slip-up, sir.”

Dr Strangelove (1964)

There are some new defenders of the credit default swap market, some of whom are offering up the General Turgidson Defence. They have a point. Just because we have had a global financial crash and economic disaster caused by a credit meltdown, accelerated by the workings of CDS and their unholy offspring, that doesn’t make it quite fair to condemn a whole risk management programme. Whether it’s nuclear war or depression, the first priority must be to make sure those in charge aren’t blamed.

That’s why I think we should immediately have some Abu Ghraib-style show trials of the lower ranking staff at the central banks and regulators, as well as, say, the sales assistants and tea ladies serving the CDS desks. Harsh punishments for them, along with full exonerations for senior officials, as well as bank and dealer top managers and directors, are called for. You might think this a miscarriage of justice, but otherwise it will take years to move beyond the allocation of responsibility for the crisis. The people who got us into this mess aren’t good at many things, but drawn-out bureaucratic defence is one of them. And we need the credit markets fixed soon...

Effing brilliant

This is off-topic, but too indicative of our :beltway media to mention today.

I just caught the end of Chris Matthew's year-end edition of Hardball. He listed the following as the Top Scandals of 2008

The #1 Scandal: Eliot Spitzer

The #2 Scandal: Rod Blagojevich

The #3 Scandal: John Edwards

The liberal media, ladies & gentlemen.

... what brazen hypocrisy! ... and after Cheney has admitted to authorizing torture himself on (inter)national TV!

I've got my goddamn shoe in my hand, ready to fly.

WTF!!!

..either we are a nation of laws, or we are not. Which will it be? How about we have a vote, a plebiscite, and ask the People: do you want to live in a nation of laws, or of men? Do you want to be governed or ruled?

Without the law, no freedom is possible.

If we abandon the law, if we excuse the criminality of the Bush Administration, we are finished as a democracy. Full stop.

The US can't seriously consider itself the world's beacon of freedom, much less a democracy ruled by law, if the powerful are excused from accountability. That said, it's facile to compare Chaney, Rumsfeld and company's. crimes with Charles Taylor's. It's demeaning to Charles Taylor's victims to imply that there is any resemblance between the country they live in and the US. Proponents of torture here don't want it used indiscriminately to spread terror and keep the population in check. Glenn Greenwald is not himself afraid of being tortured.

Mine are torn and shredded from being hurled at the television so many times.

I bought a new pair.

You should be afraid of being tortured. Glenn Greenwald is afraid dopusses such as your own self might be tortured. Our current leaders might torture somebody just to find out whether that person really likes them, or maybe, rather, is trying to infiltrate their inner circle.

Torture might be the initiation ritual. Do you remember that guy who worked for Nixon, who held his palm over a candle to prove how devoted he was? (Now he is a whacko right-wing radio celebrity. He has a thick mustache. I have forgotten his name.)

For you to say that Glenn Grenwald is not afraid of torture is an indication of how awful the USA has become under W. Bush and Cheney. Glenn is no enemy. Why would you even bring up the idea? If you were in charge, would you threaten people such as Glenn Greenwald?

If not, where do you draw the line? Is torture an interrogation technique or a punishment for people who never have been convicted? What is obvious to you? It is obvious to me that you are a dope. But, I would not torture you for that.

It may be obvious to you that I already am sort of drunk on New Years Eve. Would you torture me for that?

I haven't researched the question, but I'm sure that a few convicted capital criminals at Nuremberg went to the gallows weeping in wretched bewilderment much like Alberto Gonzales'.

I don't mean this as an expression of sympathy. I just flashed on Alberto's stunted self-awareness and alienated mind going round and round, vainly grappling, like Job, to comprehend how a person who has always worked hard and tried to do right can fall on such difficult times-- not to mention being considered a miscreant or a Bad Man.

But what did I supposedly do wrong? Why do bad things happen to good people?

"It's demeaning to Charles Taylor's victims to imply that there is any resemblance between the country they live in and the US."

-- Duckfloss

Aside from your straw man argument equating the US with Liberia (which no one has done), I'm curious which victims of the Bush administration's torture regime you are referring to, the ones who survived or the ones who died?

It's hard to imagine someone lying on a cell floor, naked and beaten to hell, thinking, "Thank God the USA isn't as scary as Liberia!"