Letters to the Editor
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Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
"This government does not torture people, and the information we get by torturing people is extremely important in guaranteeing your safety from the boogeymen".
Honestly, does anyone even listen to this guy anymore? His credibility is less than zero.
-Jeremy
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Expectations of Americans
Bush's first point is basically correct -- we do expect our government to protect us, and part of that is to get good, reliable information about threats.
By and large, Americans expect his second point to be true -- but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, proving that his administration has struggled mightily to hide or explain away the truth by carefully parsing words.
The first half of his third point is certainly true -- we've evidently got some dedicated "professionals" at work on detainees all across the world. As for the second half -- where exactly is the proof of the information from "high-value detainees"? What was avoided or averted with this info?
Bush's fourth and final point is a self-evident lie. "Fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress"? How is Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV an INAPPROPRIATE member to be fully briefed? Why does he continue to struggle to gain access to memos on approval or authorization of torture practices?
In the end, the expectations of Americans include honesty and clarity from our leaders, with those working to protect innocent human life abiding by accepted standards of human rights. Nothing more, nothing less. No blank checks, no lack of checks-and-balances, and no shunning of oversight that is the hallmark of open, accountable government.
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Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you for torturing detainees here and abroad. Everyone knows that it's the best way to get reliable information. And it shows the world the strength of American values.
Thank you for protecting us these past 6 years from another terrorist attack in the United States.
In a stunning move, which some decried as folly, you redirected our efforts from Afghanistan (the base of the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11) and turned your eye to Iraq. By starting a pre-emptive war with Iraq, you created a training ground and stage for Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now we're fighting them over in Iraq so they don't attack us here in The Homeland.
Until, of course, they're sufficiently trained for another spectacular attack here. Then we're screwed.
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terrorism--yes
GWB loves it. He took the twin-towers attack as a mandate to do whatever the heck he wanted--literally. With Darth "torture me" Cheney at his side they set off on the merry road of lawless arrogance.
Who are the terrorists now? With close to 4000 US service men/women dead in Iraq and 10 or 100 thousands of Iraqi civilians dead and millions displaced. We are.
Who are the hypocrites now? The Islamists who use car bomb and kill, or the US who invades, giving them good pretext? We are.
Who are the morally vacant? With Senator Craig as the latest poster child, Brittany, hell just about anyone on Television, serving as cultural templates. We are.
It starts to read like the book of revelations.
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Wow!
That "Thirdly" paragraph contains a rare "double daisy chain". "Trained professionals" in the first sentence is chained to "professionals who are trained" in the second. Then "information that will protect" in the second is chained to "information...that have helped protect" in the third.
Has anyone bothered to search for longer chains? Triples? Quadruples? With one monkey, and an infinite number of public appearances, they must be out there.
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"And finally, the techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress."
Really? It's my understanding that those "appropriate members of Congress" are normally a small committee group that are sworn to secrecy for being exposed to this information. They can pronounce their disagreement within the confines of that committe but can not, by law, go public with it. Even the committee membership who are appaled by the use of these techniques would not be permitted to discuss their angst publicly because of national security issues.
Nope, they just have to "sit on their hands" until it somehow leaks (thank you NY Times) and even then "national security issues" prevent them, by law, from discussing the content. So how is it that this cretin is able to continually validate the blame/shame for his atrocities onto a select few congressional leaders that are silenced by law to discuss his atrosities? Why bother to let the know? He knows they can't illuminate their distain for the practices. They become dupes for the dope...
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We got torturers
"we got professionals who are trained in this kind of work to get information"
Interrogators, in other, shorter, clearer words. Torturers, in still other words. We got it, Decider.
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He did it his way
The one thing that no one can deny is that George W. Bush has run the country any darned way he wanted to, regardless of law, the principles of democracy, the public good, the public will, our relationship with other countries, or the other branches of government. He defines indifference to other people and crass arrogance.
I was going to say his theme song should be Frank Sinatra's "I Did it My Way," but -- that won't work because Frank sang, "Regrets, I've had a few ..." Bush has had no regrets, not even a few. He doesn't regret the deaths and disfigurements he has caused, the world turmoil he has caused, the difficulty for Americans trying to defend our moral and philosophical democracy he has caused, the destruction of a country he has caused, the huge national debt he has caused ... He just sleeps soundly, happy to know that he is so powerful he doesn't really need to care.
I am consistently amazed that a nice woman like Laura Bush can sleep soundly beside him. Or does she lie awake wondering who this monster is?
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Interrogations
Let us hope that our beloved Dumbo will eventually be charged for his warcrimes, crimes against Humanity, lying and bearing false witness, ect. and that those who interrogate him are not the highly qualified specialists mentioned in his latest gibberish, even though he would definitely deserve this treatment.
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The perfect bizarro criticism of himself
By now, most people expect every statement to be a lie. Thus, he did a better job than journalists in naming laying out the issues for criticism:
1. We haven't gotten useful information.
2. BushCo condones torture.
3. The people conducting the torture are reckless.
4. Members of Congress haven't been sufficiently briefed.