Durbin attack working perfectly, has evolved into the insane

The following is an actual letter to the editor published in today's Dispatch:

Dick Durbin, the less than mediocre Senator from Illinois, has called our Marines Nazis and compared them to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I don't want an apology, I want his resignation. It is time for this man to go.

Anyone who would make these statements doesn't deserve to be a street sweeper in a one horse town in the middle of nowhere, let alone a U.S. Senator.


Scott Anderson,

Davenport

Scott, you're a poor, misguided tool, and likely a horse's ass to boot. Did you get your "GOPoints" for writing this crap? (Good little "Team Leaders" in Bush's army of lock-step lemmings can actually earn "GOPoints" for every letter to the editor, call to radio shows, or other effort to put out the wing-nut line. They can then redeem these for junk prizes that only a wing-nut could love. I'm not making this up.)

The right has succeeded in convincing knuckle-dragging sheeple like our Scott here that criticism of our Dear Leader's government and policies = bashing our brave troops. This is a malicious and maddeningly effective technique that the right uses constantly.

Sure, it requires that you be ignorant enough to not recognize the distinction, or simply dishonest enough to realize it, and cynical enough to not give a damn, as long as such low tactics defend this criminal administration from any exposure.

Notice how Durbin's statement has been distrorted to the point where ditto-heads can now flatly state as fact that Durbin "has called our Marines Nazis." It's been perverted beyond recognition.

This is how the process works. Durbin calls a spade a spade and in a statement, notes that the torture at Guantanimo is not worthy of us, and sounds more like something that immoral and dictatorial regimes might do. His point was that this needs to stop, that it's hurting America and it's reputation around the world, and is unworthy of our great nation. Are we a beacon of humanity, or a brutal dictatorship? Which road do we want to go down?

Within 24 hours, it's being spouted across the country by the right wing Mighty Wurlitzer that Durbin had "called our Marines Nazis".

Any tactic, no matter how vicious and dishonest is immediately trotted out to attack and attempt to destroy anyone who opposes our Dear Leader. If that's not Nazi-like, what is? Durbin's point is proven.

Not content with one insane attack on Durbin, the Dispatch publishes another. While this one actually actually provides accurate quotes of the Durbin statement, as well as his clarification from the floor of the Senate, the writer STILL willfully ignores the words he just quoted and insists on sticking with the preferred slander that Durbin was somehow insulting our troops. This is almost worse than the obviously mentally challenged Scott's letter above.

Sen. Dick Durbin may have been carrying party water this week when he boldly lumped the Bush administration and U.S. military interrogators with some of the world's most sadistic and brutal murderers. Or maybe the second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate felt a sudden need to appear in the world spotlight. His motives are irrelevant. His rhetoric was out of bounds.

According to the Chicago Tribune, here's how Mr. Durbin inserted foot into mouth:

"In a Senate speech Tuesday, Durbin raked Bush administration officials over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. He read an account by an unnamed FBI agent of the alleged treatment of a prisoner who was 'chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water.' The prisoner, the agent said, had been subject to extremely hot and cold temperatures, and loud rap music.

"And then Durbin said this: `If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."'

Durbin later said his comments were misinterpreted as an attack on the U.S. military. "Sadly, we have a situation here where some in the right-wing media say I've been insulting men and women in uniform," he said. "Nothing could be farther from the truth." He also said such alleged mistreatment of a prisoner has no place in a democracy.

Nazis, Soviets in the gulags. Pol Pot? Why would anyone in uniform consider those words insulting?

Our armed forces, the administration and Illinois deserved better from Sen. Durbin.

This is pure unadultrated grade a BULLSHIT and needs to be countered every time they try it. The right has pulled this disingenous stunt hundreds of times ever since the lead up to this now proven illegal invasion.

No one considers that much of the torture and techiques used on "detainees" were done or initiated by contractors hired by the government, not enlisted people. The torture and abuse is the result of this administration's policies and directives. It has nothing to do with the troops themselves.

But this dishonest techique has a triple effect. First, it trashes and attacks anyone who strongly questions this administration's policies and actions. But it also prevents the blame from being placed where it belongs, namely with higher-ups in this administration.

It creates a mind-set in the public that suggests that the troops themselves are somehow responsible for the abuse and torture, as if they just made it up on their own. "How dare you blame those poor troops!" they wail, ignoring the fact that NO ONE is blameing the troops, we're blaming BUSH and his administration. But the "defend the troops" tactic makes sure that no one ever connects the dots. It effectively deflects any criticism away from those responsible, namely the Bush administration.

And lastly, it puts those opposed to this regime constantly on the defensive. This also effectively paralyzes, or renders ineffective, the strongest voices of oppposition.

This technique suggests that our enlisted men and women are somehow over there doing whatever they feel like doing. It serves to make sure that the public never connects the dots between the people who are responsible for creating the policy and issuing the orders and the people who carry them out.

So far, not a word on the various talking head shows, not even from the supposedly Democrat or left wing pundits, pointing out that Durbin was NOT bashing our troops, no matter how much you want to twist his words.

Remember all the furor and media coverage when during the debate on the nuclear option Rick Santorum said "I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942. 'I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It's mine.'" ?

You don't? Remember all the Republicans that said those remarks were regretable? That's probably because there wasn't any coverage and there weren't any Republicans backing away from Santorum's statement. It passed with scant notice. Democrats didn't wail and there was no national network to spread the outrage.

Yet now when Durbin is in the crosshairs, no Dems are standing up to defend him or to point out the dishonesty of the attack. They all back down and admit that his remarks were regretable. Why?

The Republican playbook includes the rule that you never apologize, and never back down. You never criticize another Republican. Guess it's different in the Democratic party.