The fact that anyone thought for two seconds that we were watching honorable men confront the evil wrought by a president from their own party is a pathetic statement on just how debased politics has become in this country. If there can be actual celebratory jubilation over the brief stand taken by the Gutless Trio, then no one's been paying attention. For if John McCain actually gave a rat's ass about torture, then he would not have voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales or Samuel Alito. If Lindsey Graham gave a happy monkey fuck about the rights of detainees, then he wouldn't have authored an amendment limiting their rights of appeal. And Warner, despite his reputation as a moderate in some of his statements, almost always goes along with the herd, so, you know, fuck him, too. A real, genuine confrontation with the White House would have been to open hearings on the treatment of detainees, with subpoenas and possibly arrests. This was just legalistic wrangling over language.
In the final analysis, the compromise says that Bush gets to decide what is a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions, a government prosecutor gets to say what evidence a detainee and/or his attorney can see at trial, and the lights get turned back on at some godforsaken CIA dungeon in a remote area of Uzbekistan. Thank Christ we can finally get back to the goodly work of arresting people without charge, sending them to Syria, and looking away while they're kept in a coffin-sized space and beaten with metal cable.
But, really, and, c'mon, this was all a pretty dance for the cameras and the folks back home because of the inevitable signing statement that'll accompany the bill.
He's right. We've been suckered again. This whole deal has 'Rove' stamped on it.
The Chimp got to look tough on terrorists. He played to his base, which would let him roast slowly on a spit any little brown men who might come kill their punk asses in their beds. Torture is the Lord's work if it protects them from heathens and Liberal terrorist sympathizers, after all. Bush might have picked up a few others, as the polls seem to be showing.
McCain got to look like the 'maverick' he isn't. He may have started this honestly, or not, but somewhere along the way he was convinced somehow to back off, as were the other pols. He basically let Bush fuck him in the ass again: "It'll all be forgotten by '08. If you go along. Remember South Carolina and what we've proven we can do to you". Something like that.
The five former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who opposed Bush are on the right side of the torture deal, but they have no power.
Most of the American public like the high-minded idea of going along with morality and the Geneva Convention treaty we signed, but they really don't give a shit what Bush does to foreigners as long as they can drive their SUVs and continue consuming in safety. All they care about is that gas prices are going down.
They won't mind too much when Bush starts doing this to Americans either, for the same reasons. White Protestant Republicans will be exempt. They think. It'll be way too late to worry about it then.
November may be our last chance. Clean your rifles.
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