And lastly I accuse us. All of us - executives, players, fans, reporters - of failing to draw a line in the sand when one was needed most. Any games played by Baltimore without its executives, and the commissioner having been dismissed and without Ray Rice being permanently banned by the National Football League must be fully boycotted by all of us. If not, we become accessories after the fact.And Ginny - who may not be boycotting only tonight's game.
Even with an apology, a plethora of "progressives" continue to be up in arms over Rush Limbaugh employing the absurd to expose the absurd -- in this case, advocacy for at-whim government suspension of freedom of religion.Really? THAT'S why he called Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute and said that she should post sex tapes so the tax payers can watch her use the contraceptives "they" paid for? It was about "at-whim government suspension of freedom of religion"? That's simply absurd. Even for Scaife's braintrust.
Given their scurrilous, insupportable yet sustained accusations against Sarah Palin, tea party activists and other non-Democrats after the Arizona mass shooting, it would seem that Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, Clarence Dupnik and other left-wingers have created a "climate of hate" and are thus responsible for Eric Fuller's violent threats and arrest on Saturday.She then points out:
After all, within hours of the Jan. 8 shooting, Messrs. Krugman, Olbermann and Dupnik et al. had publicly pinned the mass murders on the right wing, the tea party and conservative media figures. And throughout the week, despite growing evidence to the contrary, these irresponsible provocateurs and their supporters refused to retract their slander.Let's take a look at what Krugman, Olbermann and Dupnik had to say. From Krugman's "Climate of Hate" column:
So when Mr. Fuller, a member of their ideological throng, threatened one of those supposed culprits with death, it was cause and effect, right?
It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.And then he illustrates something Dailey probably wants us to miss:
It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.And then:
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.No equivalence. But perhaps that's part of Dailey's issue - that the left is hypocritically accusing the right of violent political rhetoric. And that's the root of the left's immorality here.
And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.
Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our Democracy, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are Americans.Something Dailey left out.
If Sharron Angle, who spoke of "Second Amendment solutions," does not repudiate that remark and urge her supporters to think anew of the terrible reality of what her words implied, she must be repudiated by her supporters in Nevada.Or the Tigris and Euphrates of the Fox "News" political rhetoric:
If the Tea Party leaders who took out of context a Jefferson quote about blood and tyranny and the tree of liberty do not understand - do not understand tonight, now what that really means, and these leaders do not tell their followers to abhor violence and all threat of violence, then those Tea Party leaders must be repudiated by the Republican Party.
If Glenn Beck, who obsesses nearly as strangely as Mr. Loughner did about gold and debt and who wistfully joked about killing Michael Moore, and Bill O'Reilly, who blithely repeated "Tiller the Killer" until the phrase was burned into the minds of his viewers, do not begin their next broadcasts with solemn apologies for ever turning to the death-fantasies and the dreams of bloodlust, for ever having provided just the oxygen to those deep in madness to whom violence is an acceptable solution, then those commentators and the others must be repudiated by their viewers, and by all politicians, and by sponsors, and by the networks that employ them.As far as I know, none of those things have happened yet.
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The 43rd president of the United States lied the nation into the war, lied 4,343 of his fellow citizens to death in that war, lied about upholding the constitution, and lied about weapons of mass destruction.Keith takes apart Wilson's apology. Wilson, remember said this:
He lied about how he reacted to al-Qaida before 9/11 and he lied about how he reacted to al-Qaida after 9/11. He lied about getting Bin Laden, and he lied about not getting Bin Laden.
He lied about nation-building in Iraq, lied about the appearance of new buildings in the nation of Iraq, and lied about embassy buildings in nations like Iraq. He lied about trailers with mobile weapons labs in them, and he lied about trailers with Cuban prostitutes in them.
He and his administration lied — by the counting of one non-profit group — 532 times about links between al-Qaida and Iraq. Only 28 of those were by that President, but he made up for that by lying 231 times about WMD.
And yet not once did an elected Democratic official shout out during one of George W. Bush's speeches and call him a "liar."
"While I disagree with the President's statements, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility."To which Keith answers:
For the lack of civility, Congressman? Is that what you think this is about?Of course Wilson was wrong about Obama lying. But don't take my word for it or Keith's, for that matter.
It is this week, evident that the greatest threat to the nation is not terrorism nor the economy nor H1N1 nor even bad health care. It is rank, willful stupidity. When did we come to extol stupidity ahead of information, and rely on voo-doo, superstition, and prejudice ahead of education?I'll just leave it at that.
The “New York Review of Books” has obtained a confidential report from 2007 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which not only had access to Guantanamo Bay, but was allowed to interview 14 high-level detainees there. American officials, with green lights from Washington, five times in one week, wrapped a towel around Abu Zubaydah‘s neck and used it to swing him around, smashing his body against a wall. Then they put him into a box and cut off the air supply. Then they waterboarded him until he vomited.Watch it. It's about a minute in:Then there was Walid bin Attash, left hanging by his wrists for hours, standing on his one leg, in between his beatings. All of this and more credible enough for the Red Cross to call it literally torture. The Geneva Conventions, to which the United States is a signatory, establishes how it shall be determined whether, quote, torture has been committed. The ultimate deciding body, as agreed to by our country, is the Red Cross.
According to the authority recognized by the United States of America, the United States of America committed war crimes, violated the Geneva Conventions, committed torture. So the debate is over. Let the prosecutions begin. [emphasis added]
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And here's the most important part of all - the conclusion:As the ICRC interviewers informed the detainees, their report was not intended to be released to the public but, "to the extent that each detainee agreed for it to be transmitted to the authorities," to be given in strictest secrecy to officials of the government agency that had been in charge of holding them—in this case the Central Intelligence Agency, to whose acting general counsel, John Rizzo, the report was sent on February 14, 2007. Indeed, though almost all of the information in the report has names attached, and though annexes contain extended narratives drawn from interviews with three of the detainees, whose names are used, we do find a number of times in the document variations of this formula: "One of the detainees who did not wish his name to be transmitted to the authorities alleged..."—suggesting that at least one and perhaps more than one of the fourteen, who are, after all, still "held in a high-security facility at Guantánamo," worried about repercussions that might come from what he had said.
In virtually all such cases, the allegations made are echoed by other, named detainees; indeed, since the detainees were kept "in continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention" throughout their time in "the black sites," and were kept strictly separated as well when they reached Guantánamo, the striking similarity in their stories, even down to small details, would seem to make fabrication extremely unlikely, if not impossible. "The ICRC wishes to underscore," as the writers tell us in the introduction, "that the consistency of the detailed allegations provided separately by each of the fourteen adds particular weight to the information provided below."
The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. [emphasis added]The debate is over. It was torture. The ICRC says so.
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These memos provide the very definition of tyranny.Investigate and prosecute the war crimes. It's the law.
These memos include everything a petty despot would want - from the use of the military in searches and seizures, suspension of free press/free speech, arrests of individuals without legal process.
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There's no question that torture occurred here.Prosecute the war crimes. It's the law.
There's no question it was a war crime.
It is shameful that we are calling for this type of commission.
We're in violation of our obligations now.
We were supposed to investigate. It's not up to President Obama. It's not up to Senator Leahy. We're obligated to investigate.
You can not say that you believe that no one is above the law and block the investigation of the war crimes by your predecessor.
So I be written in the Book of Love,Here's the text.
I have no care about that book above;
Erase my name, or write it, as you please--
So I be written in the Book of Love.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.I just got married and I'm very happy. Why do I get that opportunity when so many others can't?
Finally tonight, a Campaign Comment about the fraudulent race attack claim, since acknowledged and recanted, by a John McCain campaign volunteer in Pennsylvania. You know the story quite well by now.
It is a sad, demoralizing tale of a woman who can easily be summarized by the term "B-Actress." Ashley Todd was not sexually assaulted by a big black man.
He did not carve the letter "B" onto her face to punish her for supporting John McCain. It apparently never dawned on her, or resembled less a cut, than an abrasion done by a weapon no more sinister than a nail file. She was not even at the ATM where she claimed the attack took place. It apparently never dawned on her that the machine had security video and she wouldn't be on it.
And clearly somewhere in her mind was a calculation that a story like this one, with layer upon layer of racial threat, could be some kind of game changer for the presidential candidate she worked to get elected in at least two states for at least two months.
Her saga is pathetic. She now claims mental illness. If this too is not true, Ms. Todd might think she's pulling another fast one over on the rest of us. In fact her claim seems to be accurate whether she knows it or not.
And much more disturbingly, so was her calculation. At least until her story, in retrospect a ludicrous confection, fell apart and she had to confess her crime, she had inspired dozens, perhaps hundreds, of journalists and bloggers and all those in between on both political sides, to stand over this nation's ever-present tinderbox of racial prejudice, and racial fear, and racial hatred.
And she had brought them all matches. We already know what the executive Vice President of Fox News had written while his organization was collectively perched next to that tinderbox, waiting for the slightest excuse to light it, and our nation, ablaze – the over-the-top caveat, thrown in for a window-dressing "balance" with not the slightest intent that it should be taken seriously:
"If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Sen. McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."
That is the well-known part of what John Moody wrote. What preceded it was far less publicized, and far more important.
"Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Sen. Obama's campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party's presidential nomination.
"That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election."If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Sen. Obama, not because they are racists, with due respect to Rep. John Murtha, but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee."
Moody wrote that.
It wouldn't be racism to suddenly blame Barack Obama for an attack on a white woman by a black man intending to punish her not supporting another black man. It would be a "watershed moment" because it somehow meant "they suddenly feel as if they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee."
Its only connection would be racial, but the response would not be racism. The tinderbox, again. And a very large match, provided by John Moody. I know this man. He is not stupid, not careless. He has, in fact, an educational background identical to my own, right down to the same college radio station. He knew what he was writing: a rationalization for racism.
That Moody should be fired, goes without saying. That if not fired, he should resign in shame, is also obvious.
Neither will happen, because there is no one of sufficient authority to reproach him and the others who but for Ashley Todd's inability to maintain her inner hoaxster for more than two days, would have solemnly and grimly, and some secretly, happily, set the presidential campaign on its ear, and knocked this nation's tenuous grip on the relationship between the races, off its axis.
Because there was nobody to say "no, don't." This is where you come in, Sen. McCain. No histrionics from me to you this time, Senator. No yelling. Just a plea. Say something about this. Now. Say something strongly and succinctly about the unacceptability of what happened and how some of your supporters tried to exploit it.
I am not asking you to assume the responsibility for this, no matter how your campaign pushed this story. I have no doubt that in the mirror-image scenario, many of Senator Obama's supporters would do the same.
But I also have no doubt that by this point in that mirror-image scenario, Sen. Obama would have said something to try to stop the next Ashley Todd and the next John Moody.
Senator, of all the things I don't like about you or your campaign I have never thought you a racist. As imperfect as was your moment with the Minnesota woman, mumbling about Arabs, I thought it was the finest moment of your campaign.
I believe that you feel as I do – that racial hatred and prejudice have no place in this campaign, or in this country. I believe that you feel as I do – as Clarence Darrow said in a different time and different context: "I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith…"
Sometimes, Sen. McCain, it is as if we are almost there. And then some unthinking act, like the one by Ashley Todd, throws us back against the rocks and we barely escape with our ship intact. In that time of foundering, Sen. McCain, far too few of us have a chance, to personally right the ship, to heal, instead of stand idly by, to make a difference in this oldest and most wearying of our struggles as a nation.
This chance, Sir, is yours. Say something. Or better yet, say something with Sen. Obama, about race and how we live with one another. Let this last week of the campaign be remembered, no matter how it turns out next Tuesday, as something other than the time Ashley Todd lied, and the John Moodys threatened, and you said nothing.
Sen. McCain , once again—grab the microphone.
I have frequently insisted I would never turn the platform of the Special Comment into a regular feature.In case you missed it.
But as these last two weeks of this extraordinary, and extraordinarily disturbing, presidential campaign project out in front of us, I fear I may have to temporarily amend that presumption.
I hope it will be otherwise, but I suspect this will be the first of nightly pieces, most shorter than this... until further notice. And thus a Special Comment tonight about the last five days of the divisive, ugly, paranoid bleatings of this Presidential race, culminating in the sliming of Colin Powell for his endorsement of Senator Obama.
There was once a very prominent sportswriter named Dick Young whose work, with ever-increasing frequency, became peppered with references to "my America."
"I can't believe this is happening in My America"... -- "we do not tolerate these people in My America" -- "this man does not belong in my America".
His America gradually revealed itself.
Insular. Isolationist. Backwards-looking. Mindlessly flag-waving. Racist. No second chances. A million rules, but only for the other guy.
Dick Young died in 1987, but he has been re-born in the presidential campaign as it has unfolded since last Thursday night.
In that time, Governor Sarah Palin, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer, and Rush Limbaugh, have revealed that there is a measurable portion of this country that is not interested in that which the vast majority view as democracy or equality or opportunity.
They want only... control -- and they want the rest of us, symbolically, perhaps physically... out. Governor Palin:
"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington D.C.," you told a fund-raiser in North Carolina last Thursday, to kick off this orgy of condescending elitism. "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation." Governor, your prejudice is overwhelming.
It is not just "pockets" of this country that are "pro-America" Governor.
America... is "pro-America."
And the "Real America" of yours, Governor, is where people at your rallies shout threats of violence, against other Americans, and you say nothing about them or to them.
What you are seeing is not patriotism, Governor.
What has surrounded you since your nomination, has been the echoing shout of mob rule. Indeed, that shout has echoed to Minnesota, where the next day an unstable Congresswoman named Michele Bachmann added to the ugly cry.
"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an expose' like that."
For nearly two years, Ms. Bachmann, who made her first political bones by keeping the movie "Aladdin" from being shown at a Minnesota Charter School because she thought it promoted paganism and witchcraft, has had a seat in the government of this nation, a seat from which she has spewed the most implausible, hateful, narrow-minded garbage imaginable.
Well, Congresswoman, you have gotten that "expose'" you wanted, have you not?
Though not perhaps in the way you imagined.
Since giving voice to your remarkable delusion that there are members of Congress who are "anti-America," and the extraordinary tap-dance of sleaze and innuendo about Senator Obama which followed...
...the challenger for your house Seat, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has been inundated by donations -- 700 thousand dollars in the three days after you spoke.
Because the America you perceive, Congresswoman -- with its goblins and ghosts and vast unseen hordes of traitors and fellow travelers and Senators who won't ban "Aladdin" -- exists only in your head, and in the heads of the others who must rationalize the failures in their own lives and of their own policies as somebody else's fault -- as a conspiracy to deny them an America of exclusionism and religious orthodoxy and prejudice, about which they must accuse, and murmur, and shout threats, and cleave the nation into pro-America and anti-America."
And back it comes to the McCain campaign.
And Senator McCain's talking head, Ms. Pfotenhauer, who on this very network Saturday, and seemingly without the slightest idea that dismissive prejudice dripped from every word, analyzed the race in Virginia.
"I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia," she said. "But the rest of the state, 'real Virginia,' if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."
Again, a toxic message...
The parts of the country that agree with Nancy Pfotenhauer... are real -- the others, not.
Ms. Pfotenhauer, why not go the distance on this one?
It was Senator McCain's own brother who called that part of Virginia nearest Washington "communist country."
Cut to the chase, Madam.
No matter the intended comic hyperbole of Joe McCain...
This is the point -- isn't it?
Leave out the real meaning of "Communism," Madam -- Joe McCain reduced it to a buzz-word; it has no more true definition right now than does "Socialism," or the phrase "a man who sees America like you and I see America."
It's about us... and them.
The pro-... and the anti.
Never mind, Madam, that the bi-secting of this country you would happily inspire, means taking a tiny crack in a dam and not repairing it but burrowing into it.
It is not enough that Senator McCain and Senator Obama might differ.
One must be real and the other false.
One must be pro-America and the other anti.
Go back and -- as your boss Rick Davis said today -- "re-think," Mr. McCain's insistence not to drag the sorry bones of Jeremiah Wright into this campaign.
And whatever you do, Ms. Pfotenhauer, allow no one enough time to think... about the widening crack in the dam.
And now all of this comes together to attack Colin Powell.
"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," writes Rush Limbaugh... the grand wizard of this school of reactionary non-thought.
"OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."
It is not conceivable that Powell might reject McCain for the politics of hate and character assassination, or just for policy.
In the closed, sweaty world of the blind allegiances of Limbaugh -- one of "us" who endorses one of "them," must be doing so for some other blind allegiance, like the color of skin.
The answer to this primordial muck, must be addressed to one man only.
Senator McCain -- where are you?
I disagree with you on virtually every major point of policy and practice.
And yet I do not think you "anti-America." I would not hesitate to join you in time of crisis in defense of this country.
Fortunately you did not echo this chorus of base hatred.
But neither have you repudiated it.
What is "pro-America", Senator?
Is it pro-America to call a man a racist because he endorses a different candidate?
Senator, you have based your campaign on many premises, but the foremost (and the most nearly admirable) of all of them, have been the pitches about "reaching across the aisle," and putting, as your ubiquitous banners reed, "country first."
So when Colin Powell endorses your opponent, you say nothing as your supporters and proxies paint him in this "Anti-America" frame and place him in Governor Palin's un-real America.
Senator McCain -- did not General Powell just "reach across the aisle?" Did he not, in his own mind at least, "put country first?"
Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to, if not applaud, then at least quiet those in your half of our fractured political equation?
Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to say "enough" to Republican smears without end?
Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to insist that, win or lose, you will not be party to a campaign that devolves into hatred and prejudice and divisiveness?
And Senator McCain, if it is not your responsibility... whose is it?
1:25 PM Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a Red Meat Congressional Candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts "Kill Him."In case you missed it.And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Just as, Sen. McCain, you have done nothing when violence has been asserted. Correction. You have done one thing.
Asked why in real time you do not repudiate this hatefulness you act as if you are the victim. Speaking today to our NBC Station in Washington.
McCain: "Sure and I repudiated it as I have on several occasions. Unfortunately, Congressman John Lewis is an American hero who I admire who made the worst, most unacceptable statement a couple days ago that I have ever heard. He accused me and Sarah Palin of being involved in segregation, George Wallace and even made reference to a church bombing where children were killed. Senator Obama has not repudiated that statement. Senator Obama should do so immediately. Its the most outrageous thing that I have heard since in politics...it is disgraceful."
Disgraceful?
Obviously, Senator, you haven't heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin's, and what people shout during them. And you haven't heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia. With a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven't heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back "and he won't salute the flag" and "we don't even know where Sen. Obama was really born."
Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace's segregation. He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace's lynch-mob mentality.
"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade," said Congressman Lewis, "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."
Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theatre. There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain.
But on this, you're not only a fraud, Senator but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here's your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.
