Wanker of the Decade: Ben Nelson
Apparently Democratic Senator Ben Nelson has announced that he will vote against Obama's supremely qualified nominee to head the OLC, Dawn Johnsen:
I'd be curious to see what position Nelson took on past OLC nominees like Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, who so distinguished themselves in the office. I bet he had no problem with them. But, hey, while they might have committed war crimes, at least they didn't express support for a woman's constitutionally protected right to choose. Johnsen was one of Obama's most inspired choices for any office and if her nomination gets torpedoed because of the epic wankery of a Democratic Senator, I won't even be able to put into words how furious I will be.
"Senator Nelson is very concerned about the nomination of Dawn Johnsen, based on her previous position as Counsel for NARAL. He believes that the Office of Legal Counsel is a position in which personal views can have an impact and is concerned about her outspoken pro-choice views on abortion," said spokesman Clay Westrope.Give me a break. Nelsen's going to vote against Johnsen because, like most Americans, she's pro-choice? Isn't the same thing true of virtually every Obama nominee for any position? And it's not like Johnsen was nominated to be Abortion Czar. She's been nominated to head the OLC, the office responsible for assessing the legality of various executive actions. I'm curious what OLC legal opinions Nelson believes Johnsen's pro-choice views will even be relevant to.
I'd be curious to see what position Nelson took on past OLC nominees like Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, who so distinguished themselves in the office. I bet he had no problem with them. But, hey, while they might have committed war crimes, at least they didn't express support for a woman's constitutionally protected right to choose. Johnsen was one of Obama's most inspired choices for any office and if her nomination gets torpedoed because of the epic wankery of a Democratic Senator, I won't even be able to put into words how furious I will be.
posted by A.L. at 11:48 AM
10 Comments:
So, he wants to derail her nomination because she supports abortion, which is legal in all 50 states?
Greg Sargent posted an update noting that Ben Nelson may very well vote for cloture, but then vote "no" on the final vote. Which is the usual weasel move, but would allow the nomination forward.
Speaking of Bybee and Bradbury...
As a proud American, I want to be able to stand up and declare to allies and enemies alike that my country is a shining beacon on the hill, a moral example for all the nations on Earth. But we don’t get to call ourselves a shining beacon for nothing---there’s a price, and that price is that we are not allowed to torture people. Our enemies can break our bones, but they cannot break our souls---only we have that power.
Now every time a sick, deranged tyrant faces trial for torture in some far-off, heaven-forsaken land, he’ll be able to declare that America tortures, too. That’s a stain that will be difficult for us ever to remove, and it was our fault.
It’s telling that these torture policies were formulated not by successful, career military men, many of whom, like Dennis Blair, Bob Gates, David Petraeus, strongly oppose torture, but by armchair warriors and chickenhawks like Cheney, Bush, Tenet, Rice, Addington, and Ashcroft, none of whom have any idea what war is really like.
And what upsets me most is that those who devised these torture policies knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew they were committing a crime. How do I know? Because they didn’t just classify the details of the program---they also destroyed any internal memos that expressed opposition and provided arguments against the torture policies, so that the creators of the torture policy could maintain plausible deniability about what they were doing in our name. Those are the actions of people who know they’re guilty.
Nobody has explained to me why things we prosecuted our enemies for---back in WWII for example---are legal when we do them. Nobody has explained to me why things we do to a tiny number of our most elite troops (with their consent) specifically to prepare them for being tortured by our enemies are not torture when we are the ones who do them to our enemies. (The difference between sex and rape is consent, after all.) Nobody has explained to me why strapping a man down and shooting water up into his airways 83 times is somehow not torture; is it because we mercifully provide a bag whenever he vomits from the choking?
I’d like to see just one of these so-called tough guys who approved the torture policies stand up, face the music, and take it like a man, instead of letting our brave soldiers, intelligence analysis, and interrogators take the heat for them.
If Cheney really loved his country and his soldiers, he’d announce that the buck stopped with him, and that he was going to take the heat for everything. He’d insist that everybody channel their anger in his direction and away from those who were following his orders.
But he won’t do that, and not for any love of country---it’s because he’s a coward and a flaming narcissist, and he’s watching his own rear and his own legacy. He’s in way too deep to come out for air now.
So now we’ve actually reached a point where we’re all standing around arguing about what constitutes torture and whether torture is effective or not. And the very same people who moan about the “political correctness police” hide behind euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
My country ‘tis of thee…
"If Cheney really loved his country and his soldiers, he’d announce that the buck stopped with him, and that he was going to take the heat for everything."
He won't -- he is just way too yellow-livered for that and this is precisely what Former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was alluding to when she appeared in Olbermann's Countdown a couple of days ago. If Cheney feels all these torture tactics yielded information that kept America safe, where was he when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke out? Why didn't he come out in vocal support of the soldiers who were after all following orders from the high command?
"So now we’ve actually reached a point where we’re all standing around arguing about what constitutes torture and whether torture is effective or not."
The problem is even worser. Just yesterday on the Ed Schultz show there were a panel of 3 guests with one of them being Michael Smerconish. I don't remember the name of woman in that panel but she was valiantly trying to point out to Schultz who was repeatedly asking Smerconish if the torture methods "worked", that its not about the efficacy of the methods, its about the fact they were against the gosh-darned law! Despite getting an earful on that, Schultz turned right around and asked the very same question about efficacy once again to Smerconish. I mean, I was just flabbergasted. Here was a liberal radio talk host, reaching (by the last count) something around 600,000 viewers on his show which is hardly a month old, and he just coolly plays into the Right's insistence on shifting this debate to effectiveness of torture.
BTW, am I the only one to see this -- McCain just raised a big hue & cry over Obama terming Afghan war as "overseas external contingencies" but he is ok with the Right trying to call torture as "enhanced interrogation"? What kind of hypocrisy is this?
BTW, Ben Nelson won the Gold for the Worst person in the world from Olbermann for lumping him with his favorite Fox News counterparts. If he votes against Johnsen over something that has nothing do with performing OLC duties, he is going to be done for.
Ben Nelson is going to vote no on Dawn Johnson because Obama is going to end student subsidies to private companies and that hurts Ben Nelson's state so this is his revenge.
One doesn't need to find paranoid grudge reasons for Ben Nelson to do something reactionary. Ben Nelson is more conservative than some Republicans from New England. The only reason he needs to do something reactionary is the fact that his basic nature is, in fact, reactionary.
Eclectic Radical.........
You are absolutely right. Ben Nelson may as well be a Rethuglican't. He fits right in with them. He's alot like Judd Greg. An ass.
Ben Nelson was trying to use this vote as leverage for his student loan subsidies to banks but Obama said "I don't care."
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