The fact that Kit Bond still has any credibility whatsoever on the issue of torture speaks poorly of the American people.

Senator Bond was one of the Nine Reprehensible Republican Senators who voted against the McCain Anti-Torture Amendment on October 5, 2005. Bond should be chased from the public forum in shame, whenever he opens his mouth about torture.

Posted at May 13, 2008 7:57 PM in response to GOP Senator Floats Compromise Torture Measure

@jasperjava,

What is the motive for your attempting to grayscale other than to deceive, as a recruiting method in an war of ideology? You portray a false dichotomy, as if there are only two possible realities. From my vantage point, if I were forced to condense all down to a linear scale, communism and dog-eat-dog capitalism would be on the same side: hells on earth, or to label the scale using terms of conflict, BOTH are the enemy. Additionally, this present-day bastardisation of free-markets, crony capitalism, would be even farther from the zero point on the side from whence manifestations of evil are spawned than the first two.

Flatworlders would be well-advised to caution when they condense down to black and white, lest they awaken one morning and discover a correction of input values has put them on the side of
{NOT (us)}.

-- --

@workerbee - thanks for the note, i miss you also. The codebase change has made this namespace ill-suited as a place to correct the focus of elliptic perspectives. It's just too Web2.0_streaming transcendence without methods available to hook placemarks. Distillation/Synthesis requires eddies and pools on the sides of the coursing datastreams. I lurk more than post here presently, and yes, I've signed up to beta-test archives, but am unsure if it will provide access to what I consider relevant, and did not previously archive, which are some of the forked thread discussions.

will peace - the else is obscene.

Have you visited the quagmire?
Have you swam in the s**t?
The party conventions and the real politik.
The faces always different, the rhetoric the same,
but we swallow it, and see nothing change nothing has changed...

"Punk Rock Song" - Greg Graffin
Bad Religion, "The Gray Race", Atlantic (1996)

Posted at May 4, 2008 7:13 PM in response to Time to Win the War of Ideas--Finally

The conservative movement's hostility toward government, and its agenda of ideas intended to weaken government, explains why Republicans in power have failed at governing.

You would be well-advised to pay attention to the grandfather of spammers, Richard Viguerie, to David Keene, and even to Bob Barr. All three have now renounced the Bush Administration and written off the last 7 1/2 years, not as a failure of conservatism, but instead, a failure of politicians elected as conservatives to act faithfully while holding elective office. Of the 3 mentioned above, Barr is the only one who may have had a small change of heart, but I believe the verdict is still out on that decision. Vigeurie and Keene did not dissent against Bush until the inevitability of outcome in the 2006 midterm elections became inescapably clear. These two are also still capable of moving the right in directions that they desire, claiming it to be the true path of core conservative theory.

They play a strategy ripped straight out of a Marxist dialectics playbook, using half-truths, mistruths, and when those prove to be ineffective, 100% lies. They are not in fact, real conservatives, but new-rightys wrapped in conservatism's hide that they skinned from the already sickened beast in the late 70's.

The NewRight does not possess any real underlying foundations to their philosophy. They do no desire a smaller government when it comes to draconian border fences and agencies to guard them, or the infrastructure required to keep a significant number of American citizens incarcerated. They do not believe in a balanced budget. Even as they decry the liberal tendencies to tax and spend, they walk-away from the reality: The GOP Gone Wild in D.C. proved that conservatism in power's fiscal restraint is to just spend without end. Contemporary Conservative are really against the societal provisioning of faith, hope and charity to those the vicissitudes of life has flung face-down into the dirt. This is what fuels their passion to decrease the government.

It's not about accepting responsibility for these evil clowns. Their only motivation is the acquisition of power as an ends, and all means are justified. Claiming personal responsibility lay at the bedrock of their beliefs is just a tactic that provides them many opportunities to vitriolically attack single moms in misdirection sleight of hands while dealing out cards in a game of 3-card monty.

Posted at May 2, 2008 9:39 PM in response to Time to Win the War of Ideas--Finally

This isn't a popular point of view around here, because many blame Armitage for Plame's outing, and he does bear a great deal of responsibility for it. Consider though that Armitage, upon realising he'd bee a loud-mouthed buffoon who'd blown a CIA agents's cover immediately went down to the FBI to voluntarily give a deposition, and cooperated uncoerced with Fitzgerald's investigation. Armitage has also publicly admitted he was an utter fool to have spoken to Novak about Plame. Compare that to the saga of Scooter and the Prosecutor.

The Neocons have had a grudge against Armitage since the Reagan Administration (see Counterpunch link below). He has often been the big ox standing in their path. Armitage also provided refuge to bureaucrats under fire from Feith and Bolton while he worked for Powell at State. Feith's finger pointing blame at Armitage and Powell should been seen for what it is: an attempt to blame others for his own responsibility, incompetence and immorality. Neoconsevative Renunciate is a redundant term.

• Michael Ledeen, "Iran-Contra Revisited? Our dangerous Iran policy continues", National Review, August 14, 2003
• Jim Lobe, "CIA as political football", Asia Times, July 14, 2004
• Stephen Green, "Serving Two Flags Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration", Counterpunch, February 28/29, 2004
• "CNN Ex-intelligence official: Bolton bullied analyst: U.N. nominee blasted at Senate committee hearing", CNN News, April 12, 2005
• Dafna Linzer, "Bolton Faces Allegations That He Tried to Fire Analysts", Washington Post, April 15, 2005
• Dafna Linzer, "Bolton Often Blocked Information, Officials Say: Iran, IAEA Matters Were Allegedly Kept From Rice, Powell", Washington Post, April 18, 2005
• Glenn Kessler, "Bolton Office E-Mails Spotlight Tensions", Washington Post, May 11, 2005

Posted at April 26, 2008 10:16 PM in response to The Banality of Evil: What Would Hannah Arendt Say About Doug Feith?

Doug Feith: The Banality of Evil. One of the Revisionaries Of Our Administration of Mediocrity, First Sceptered On Less than A Plurality.

Feith now holds The Disjunct Professorship Chair at George Washington University, School of Foreign Service, teaching two graduate level courses: 1) Advantageous Exploitation of Dialectic Rhetoric; and 2) Artful Renunciation As A Method Of Culpability Avoidance.

Or as it is referred to amongst Neoconniving friends: How To GitMo Abu Ghraib Without Doing The Time with a well-practised performance of the Ledeen Jig, replete with its grandiose spinning pirouettes of mendacity.

Posted at April 25, 2008 9:48 AM in response to The Banality of Evil: What Would Hannah Arendt Say About Doug Feith?

Dark conspiratorial thoughts; phantasies of portents and omens, when instead the more likely answer is that Scaife has come to realise after witnessing the Bush Administration, that W.J. Clinton wasn't so bad a president.

Mr. Scaife, reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, spent more than $2 million investigating and publicizing accusations about the supposed involvement of Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in corrupt land deals, sexual affairs, drug running and murder.

But now, as Mrs. Clinton is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Scaife’s checkbook is staying in his pocket.

Christopher Ruddy, who once worked full-time for Mr. Scaife investigating the Clintons and now runs a conservative online publication he co-owns with Mr. Scaife, said, "Both of us have had a rethinking."

"Clinton wasn’t such a bad president," Mr. Ruddy said. "In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today."

David D. Kirkpatrick, "As Clinton Runs, Some Old Foes Stay on Sideline", New York Times, February 19, 2007

It should also be noted when discussing Scaife and his paper that he has come out strongly against the continuing war effort in Iraq, and even backed Murtha for Head of the House.

• Op/Ed, "The war in Iraq: Time to move on", Pittsburg Tribune Herald, January 17, 2006
• Op/Ed, "Murtha's time: Make him leader", Pittsburg Tribune Herald, November 14, 2006
• Op/Ed, "Yingling & the generals: Truth is the Rx", Pittsburg Tribune Herald, May 7, 2007
• Op/Ed, "The war in Iraq", Pittsburg Tribune Herald, July 15, 2007
• Op/Ed, "Hillary's visit: Surprise, surprise", Pittsburg Tribune Herald, March 26, 2008
• Op/Ed, "The war in Iraq: 5 years on", Pittsburg Tribune Herald, March 19, 2008

• Steve Twedt, "Scaife demands documents from Post-Gazette", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 23, 2007
• David Segal, "Low Road to Splitsville - Right-Wing Publisher's Breakup Is Super-Rich In Tawdry Details", Washington Post, October 22, 2007

Posted at April 22, 2008 12:48 PM in response to Kiss Of Death

It is amazing how easy it is for the vast majority of culpable individuals for The American Government's imprimatur upon human torture to slip away from responsibility by just sacrificing one of their own to the ravening packs.

Look at a few who have already abandoned the BuShip and are playing renunciants from the shore: Doug Feith, Richard Perle, and Michael Rubin to name, significant because they are Neoconservatives, and this is a strategy historically played by Trotskyites. How many times willed the left-side of the political bipolarity be neoconned by this shell game, before they realise they are rubes? This idiocy and another also again in play, the circular firing squad, has cost y'all more than you can even begin to imagine in just my lifetime. So watch the rats as they scurry for their sewer hidey holes, and remember that during the primaries, you fire blanks, or The Nation is liable to end-up with President John McCainold, serving-up the same old mediocrity responsible for this present-day insanity, First Lady, Cindy McNovocaine, and reappearing rat-bastards slipped-in via executive appointments.

Here's an abridged short-list of appointees, who need be considered as investigative targets, when considering torture's imprimatur I have handy:

• William P. Barr


• H. Christopher Bartolomucci


• Bradford A. Berenson


• Jay S. Bybee


• Robert J. Delahunty


• Timothy E. Flanigan


• William J. Haynes II


• Patrick F. Philbin


• Pierre-Richard Prosper


• Helgi C. Walker


• John Choon Yoo

Posted at April 15, 2008 10:59 AM in response to More Yoo

And in the free-marketplace of ideas, I firmly believe that John Yoo's vision will lose. It would be unwise to send him packing into the shadows.

Posted at April 14, 2008 8:56 AM in response to More Yoo

Scapegoating Yoo is engaging in the game played to oust Churchill, and worse would only be an exercise in counterproductive futility. Yoo would end up being provided a rock to hide under by a think tank until time and spin has washed away the past, and then he could reemerge championed by contemporary conservatives.

Think I am wrong? Consider:

• Robert C. McFarlane
• Robert M. Gates
• George P. Shultz
• Elliott Abrams
• Edwin Meese III
• Michael Ledeen

Has the quality of students entering into UC, Berkeley dropped to the point that they need to be protected from exposure to Yoo?

It is a far better punishment that Yoo retains his Professorship, and be forced to see the derision in undergraduates' eyes for the rest of his tenured career.

Posted at April 14, 2008 8:33 AM in response to More Yoo

Among those who believe that personal honour is a valuable commodity, there is a great variability how it is applied to reality. I can understand that a careerist officer who taught ethics at West Point could end up staring straight into the abyss overseeing freeboot corruption in Iraq concomitant with the regular abusive treatment of humans detained Under The Colour of Authority Imparted by the American Flag. Especially when these repugnant acts are aided by a jaded, or worse, outright thievish officer corps. We are American, and supposed to be better than the rest. What this administration has done to The Nation is obscenely depraved, and will not easily be undone.

As to questions whether the death of Colonel Westhusing's was a suicide; Greg Mitchell's Huffington Post, cited above, offered a link to an article:

Robert Bryce, "A Death Reconsidered", Texas Observer, February 8, 2008

I am not one to be easily convinced about conspiracy theories, but one fact mentioned in the article does stand out:

Most suicides by gunshot occur when the victims place the muzzle of a firearm in their mouth, under their chin, at their forehead, or to their temple. Westhusing’s death, according to military reports, was caused by a gunshot behind his left ear. Dr. Lawson Bernstein, an expert in forensic and clinical psychiatry who is based in Pittsburgh and has worked on numerous suicide investigations, told me that he had never seen a case of suicide by gunshot with the wound behind the ear. “If I was part of any coroner’s team, I’d be looking at this as something else,” he said. “It sounds like an execution.” He went on to say that it’s “an unusual mechanism” for suicide and that in his mind there are two possibilities: It’s not a suicide, or “it’s someone trying to make it not look like a suicide.”

Was Westhusing left-handed? This picture is an indication he was not, although it dies not show where his sidearm was holstered. It would be unusual for a left-handed person to sling their rifle for for a right-handed draw, would it not? If one were to choose a behind the ear placement of a suicide round, I'd expect the ear on the side of the dominant hand would be where the entry wound was located.

Posted at April 2, 2008 5:04 PM in response to Petraeus' Personal Greed A Factor In Army Colonel's Suicide