Karl Rove Endorses Torture in Just 140 Characters

Gonzo

Geez, Karl looks hip 2 da lingo of da tweeterz!

If only the rest of the GOP were this "plugged in!"

Conservative Cabbie

Andrew Sullivan has an excellent e-mail fro one of his readers on his blog (http://tinyurl.com/dbuvge) on his blog.

The e-mailer makes a number of points which you should read but two in particular stand out for me.

1. The Republicans didn't harass Bill Clinton for his perjury once he had left office so why do the left feel the need to do so to Bush.

2. Moveon.org were set up to "move on" from the Clinton affair because it was in the best interest of the country. Why aren't they so keen to move on now?

Go read it.

ndm

And Andrew Sullivan responded to this dissenting reader with:

-- My concern is the precedent. If the precedent is set that a president can assume extra-legal and extra-constitutional powers to seize and detain and torture anyone he deems an "enemy combatant", and an attack occurs in the future, and a future president invokes the Cheney-Bush torture precedent as justification for even more draconian measures, then the constitution is in grave danger. This is obviously a horrible situation to be in - forced between prosecuting former officials and allowing war crimes to stand buttressed by a claim of constitutionality - but it is not the fault of those of us who favor the rule of law. It is Bush's and Cheney's fault - to have both claimed unprecedented powers to break all laws and treaties and to have suspend all requirements to follow the laws on torture and abuse of prisoners.

-- You and I may be able to move on. Obama will be able to move on. But the constitution will continue to take on water below the surface. And one future president - Giuliani? Palin? - can take us to the next level of executive autocracy.

Andrew Sullivan is certainly correct. It is ludicrous to suggest that it is fine and dandy to impeach a sitting President for a trivial perjury but impossible to indict an ex-Predident for committing war crimes.

patricia

Rove s probably busy with his legals trying to figure out how to dodge the bullets currently being aimed at him and the other shysters.

Still, good for him. 140 characters, whereas Mad Mel praises torture in reams and reams of on line blurb.

Mel really should take a lesson in reductionism from Mr Rove.

And disappear completely.

Peter

Waterboarding is a frat boy jape - it is not torture.

Now that Obama wants to shove everything out in the open we'll see just how many lives were saved by waterboarding these Gitmo creeps.

Damn you, Alex Massie.

dearieme

"Go read it" is American English. If our cabbie were really conservative, he'd write "Go and read it".

l

Is Patricia Patty Hurst?

elixelx

Where is your counter-column on your last cracked Column, Alex? You know the one where you layded the Spanish Judge who wants to prosecute Amenricans as War Criminals, while his own colleagues think he's a juvenile delinquent treating the Spanish judicial system as his own tinker-toy!
What? you didn't see that last part, you one-eyed harridan?
The funny part of all this is, YOU and your pals do for guilty pleasure what the CIA and Karl Rove do reluctantly in order that you may sleep soundly in any bed you choose.
Be honest, boyo! Say "Thank you, Karl!"

elixelx

Where is your counter-column on your last cracked Column, Alex? You know the one where you lauded the Spanish Judge who wants to prosecute Amenricans as War Criminals, while his own colleagues think he's a juvenile delinquent treating the Spanish judicial system as his own tinker-toy!
What? you didn't see that last part, you one-eyed harridan?
The funny part of all this is, YOU and your pals do for guilty pleasure what the CIA and Karl Rove do reluctantly in order that you may sleep soundly in any bed you choose.
Be honest, boyo! Say "Thank you, Karl!"

What Happened to the Rule of Law

elixelx, you seem to have some serious issues that need working out. If we draw any line for which those we pay to protect us, is that line too restricting? Torture is illegal. Bush and Cheney knew it was illegal and sought a way around the law. It also happens that torture produces unreliable results, according to most experts, and Bush and company no doubt spent valuable resources chasing dead ends. Before I line up to thank George W. Bush for each breath and I and my children draw, you wouldn't mind if I actually understood that that was the case, would you? We don't torture. The president said as much and he lied. And he tortured. I know, it's not lying about a series of bjs, but you have to admit that it's almost as serious right?

Fergus Pickering

During the Second World War ur top interrogator, man by the name of l'Oreste-Pinto, used to keep German officers under interrogation where their troops could see them until they pissed themselves, much to their mortification and shame. My question is - is this torture? And if it isn't then what makes waterboarding torture?

THX1138

Cabbie.

"1. The Republicans didn't harass Bill Clinton for his perjury once he had left office so why do the left feel the need to do so to Bush.

Even if there was an ounce of truth in it - which there isn't - so what they just transferred their hatred of the Clinton brand to Hillary. Probably something that you and Andrew Sullivan do have in common-:)

I'm with Gore Vidal on this there was a right-wing conspiracy against the Clintons, Starr & his corporate paymasters should have been tried for treason for trying to overthrow two lawful elections.

elixelx

Torture, WHEN IT IS TORTURE, is illegal!
You don't hate torture, per se; you hate George Bush, and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, but, much too lily-livered to express your true hatreds, you resort to criticising their work...which, by-the-bye kept you safe!
You really are such a chicken-shit! George Bush tortured! I wish!
Oh, and by-the-bye again, thanx for the faux-psychological mumbo-jumbo adout me having issues. At least my issues are not social diseases, as yours are!

elixelx

The tape shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.
A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.
The Sheikh begins by stuffing sand down the man's mouth, as the police officers restrains the victim. Then he fires bullets from an automatic rifle around him as the man howls incomprehensibly.
At another point on the tape, the Sheikh can be seen telling the cameraman to come closer.
"Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show," the Sheikh says.

Over the course of the tape, Sheikh Issa acts in an increasingly sadistic manner. He uses an electric cattle prod against the man's testicles and inserts it in his anus.
At another point, as the man wails in pain, the Sheikh pours lighter fluid on the man's testicles and sets them aflame.
You get the idea!
And what horrible crime against humanity did the victim commit?
The torture victim was identified by Nabulsi as an Afghan grain dealer, Mohammed Shah Poor, who the Sheikh accused of short changing on a grain delivery to his royal ranch on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.
Now that, my friends, is TORTURE! Do please read it all!
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/theres_torture_and_then_theres_1.html

BobN

"Now that, my friends, is TORTURE!" Oh, so the difference is that it was caught on tape? I see.

Conservative Cabbie

ndm

Only in your world can perjury be considered trivial. Don't you think that criminalising your political opponents might also do harm to the constitition? That's Chavez politics, but then as a leftist, you probably have no problem with that.

THX

"I'm with Gore Vidal on this there was a right-wing conspiracy against the Clintons, Starr & his corporate paymasters should have been tried for treason for trying to overthrow two lawful elections."

You are kidding? And by the way, I don't "hate" Hillary. Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I have a maturity that prevents me from hating anyone just for their political views.

Dearime

Your name says it all really. Silly person!

THX1138

Cabbie as usual were going off post. Actually I'm not kidding. Do really believe that the Starr was a neutral independent Counsel trying to get at the truth behind Whitewater? Yeah right! Starr was a a partisan hack with one goal and one goal only to destroy and elected President for his masters in the far right of the republican party and it's corporate masters particularly in the heath insurance industry.

This whole sordid process kicked off after the GOP took over Congress in 94 and decided that it could attack a hated President
and his equally hated wife over a tiny land deal in the dim and distant past. When that failed Starr spent $40 million taxpayer dollars to find out the President had lied about getting a BJ from an intern and to practically accuse Mrs Clintion of murdering Vincent Foster. "We the People" (obviously not me- although my younger brother is a citizen) the sole source of political legitimacy under the constitution twice elected Clinton much to the bitter hatred of much of the Republican party and the wealthy conservative corporate ruling classes who own it and they did everything in their power to destroy him and remove him from elected office...Yes I do believe that is treason!

Politicians and political parties have long memories and I'm personally not surprised that the Dems are now attacking Bush, Cheney & their administration after all they did a terrible thing suspending the constitution and the rule of law to to torture people. Like you I don't have much sympathy for a lot of the individuals tortured but I don't think that is the point. The administration broke the law and it went all the way to the top and someone has to pay and the Dems want justice and probably quite a lot of revenge for Clinton and a million other dirty tricks I for one hope they get it.

Off course I don't think you hate Hillary hence the smiley. Why bother engaging with the idiot attacks like dearime, we come here to argue our case robustly, politely & respectful with worthy opponents that hold different opinions. I for one find this great fun as I'm sure you do as do most other posters. Why some people just want to hurl abuse at people for holding a different opinion I find bizarre.

fauxpopulism

I think there should be a rule of thumb in any blog commentary that the first person to say "corporate masters" (like comparing someone to Hitler) should be instantly disregarded.

THX1138

fauxpopulism - I'm usually the first to shoot down conspiracy theories but this is all in the public domain.

Richard Mellon Scaife the billionaire Republican publisher did form the
Arkansas Project to attack and end Bill Clintons Presidency and he did give
The American Spectator nearly $2 million to pursue his hatred of the Clintions in the pages of it's magazine. The US health insurance Co's along with big pharma did raise $500 million to attack the Clintons through TV ads. Starr was there to discredit their reputations through his kangaroo court and he was rewarded by Scaife, his corporate paymaster with a big job at Pepperdine University for his trouble. Corporate America wanted rid of this trouble some President for lots of reasons but mostly over health care reform and the Insurance Co's are the piggy banks of corporate America. Thank goodness they didn't get their way and Clinton left office with higher approval ratings than their poster boy Reagan but they did scuttle heath care reform leaving millions of Americans the right to die unhelped by the state.

Ronnie

Oh what's new!?

Torture isn't really torture if a right-wing president allows it.

Perjury isn't perjury if a left-wing president commits it.

Somewhere in the middle torture is still torture and perjury is still perjury.

Part of the issue here is the cack-handed attempts to create a legal framework for something that is clearly illegal however effective, or otherwise, that something turned out to be.

In my day they just got on with it until someone found out, as in the case of Mi Lai.

B Minworth

Alex--

I don't believe that is what KR was saying, at all. This seems far more likely:

Precautions [were] taken to guarantee compliance with federal prohibition on torture. [In fact], you might characterize [the] diligence as overcautious.

There.