Friday, April 17, 2009

Dispatches from an Alternate Universe

Here's David Rivkin's take on the torture memos, posted at The Corner:
The conclusions OLC memos reach — that the specific interrogation techniques used by the CIA did not constitute torture — are eminently reasonable. To any fair-minded observer, these memoranda definitively establish that the Bush Administration did not engage in torture. In short, these memos go a long way towards rebutting shrill and unfair attacks on the integrity of Bush Administration officials, and, more generally, on America's honor.
And did I mention that up is down, black is white, and Vice President Palin has been doing a splendid job in office so far?
Digg!

9 Comments:

Blogger Fraud Guy said...

"Fair-minded observer" "did not engage" "long way towards rebutting" "integrity of Bush Administration officials" "America's honor"

I do not think these word means what he thinks they means. I guess it's opposite day.

12:44 PM  
Blogger malcontent said...

(Hands on ears and eyes closed)

Repeat after me, LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-!

1:02 PM  
Anonymous Dilip said...

I don't think _they_ are living in any alternative universe -- _we_ are! For them this is all just business as usual. What is the big deal if a few insects bite the crap out of someone, right? After all these guys probably walk around with a bee-hive on their heads.

2:05 PM  
Blogger Enlightened Layperson said...

This was about what I expected; enough to outrage Bush opponents, but not so much that Bush supporters would see the big deal. Better to compare the techniques authorized here to the ones alleged by the high-value detainees to the Red Cross.

High value detainees never read the memos, after all.

3:49 PM  
Blogger AJ said...

Rivkin's claim is based on the assumption that the interrogators did not go beyond what OLC claimed was legal. Nothing stops them from going farther except the fear of prosecution...or lack thereof.

9:17 PM  
Anonymous Eclectic Radical said...

Rivkin's claim is also based on the idea that the OLC's view of the law is in line with a judicial interpretation of the law. If it is not, then everyone is still vulnerable to prosecution and the government can and should sue the lawyers who released the OLC opinions for malpractice.

12:30 AM  
Blogger Hume's Ghost said...

"To any fair-minded observer"

One year of the Afghan prison operation alone cost an estimated 100 million, which Congress hid in a classified annex of the first supplemental Afghan appropriation bill in 2002. Among the services that U.S. taxpayers unwittingly paid for were medieval-like dungeons, including a reviled former brick factory outside of Kabul known as "The Salt Pit." In 2004, a still-unidentified prisoner froze to death there after a young CIA supervisor ordered guards to strip him naked and chain him overnight to the concrete floor. The CIA has never accounted for the death, nor publicly reprimanded the supervisor. Instead, the Agency reportedly promoted him. - Jane Mayer, The Dark Side

Obviously, the guy who died wasn't a "fair minded observer."

9:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Apologists can invoke 2 characters from Alice in Wonderland.
Either Humpty-Dumpty, "words means I choose them to mean" or the Red Queen, "very poor words that only have one meaning".

4:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The self-marginalizing rightwing".

9:43 PM  

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