(A play on words! Almost a pun!)
From the Weekly Standard:
Hugh Hewitt, Breaking the Durbin Code.
William Kristol, A Better Idea Than Censure?
For the record, I think the Democrats must either censure him or remove him from a position of leadership. His asinine comments and half-a**ed apologies do not excuse his reprehensible words. He stood on the Senate floor and spoke as a leader in the Democratic Party. If the Democrats do not whip him into shape, they are setting themselves up to lose more of the American electorate.
12 comments:
Did you demand censure of Senator Cornyn for his remarks about violence against American judges?
Let's play the stupid accuse-others-of-hypocrisy game: Did you even acknowledge the stupidity of Senator Durbin's comments after getting all flustered over Cornyn's asinine comment?
For the record, I think Cornyn's statement was stupid but not censure-worthy. Ditto Trent Lott. In the latter case, I am on the record--and wrote all of my elected officials--insisting that Lott be removed from positions of leadership in the Republican Party, or else as a registered independent I would not give my vote to the Republicans in the next election. (Hey, here I am criticizing Senator Santorum for his Nazi comments, too.)
I would rather the Democrats just do the responsible thing and effectively gag windbags like Senators Byrd and Durbin. But they keep trotting these clowns out there after making egregiously stupid comments. As an independent, I am much less likely to use my vote to support a party that behaves in such a way.
As a matter of fact, Tom, I didn't accuse you of hypocrisy. I asked you a question and made no accusation. The accusation lay in your characteristic over-reaction, so hold up a mirror for "stupid." And, yes, Atlas, I was a Republican before you were a gleam in your father's eye and am a Republican now. I'm just not a Republican of the Little Tent stripe.
Ha! Keep writing, Ralph.
I'm going to defend Durbin, because like, Andrew Sullivan, I think he did not say what people are accusing him of saying. He said if you were to describe X, it would be feasible to believe that it came from source Y. This has the inconvenient ring of being what some of us like to call "true". Were you to describe the circumstance he described to someone, take away the names and dates, and ask "could evil regime X have done this" the answer would be yes. Just because bringing up Nazis is almost always wrong,, let's keep our eyes on the prize here -- he was saying that we should NOT act like Nazis, that Nazis are bad, that we are better than this. he did not call any particular person a Nazi, nor a Stalinist. This is a huge difference that the conservatives, in their witch hunt, have overlooked. Durbin did not say or imply what they say he said, period. Andrew Sullivan nailed this from the beginning. That Durbin was browbeaten into making an apology does not mean that he has anything for which to apologize. And I have been making the argument about the irresponsibility of invoking Nazism as long as anyone here at Big Tent, but the witch hunt needs to stop. I am stunned by how parsing what someone said about torture is worse than the torture itself. That conservatives in America have reached such a nadir of self-reflectiveness speaks volumes about modern conservatism. That modern conservatives habve chosen to turn this also as a partisan stalking horse reveals an even greater intellectual bvacuity than I thought -- I am curious -- show me one public condemnation any of these conservatives made when Rush Limbaugh was comparing feminists to Nazis. Just to be clear -- Durbin was condemning bad behavior that we all ought to be condemning. Limbaugh was comparing women who wanted family medical leave and a stronger health care system to Nazis. And you guys are up in arms about this?
Here is my promise -- if i can do a google search and find even ten times when anyone of Big Tent, plus, say, Hugh Hewitt, the editorial staff of the National Review and any four of the main GOP players right now of your choosing publicly condemned Limbaugh, 'll take your charges seriously. Until then, it is all self-indulgent preening.
Meanwhile, anyone who would say that Lott's comments (in which 54 years after the Dixiecrats lost and many decades after white supremacy was revealed to be wrong to southern conservatives Lott still asserted that America would have been better had Strom Thurmond beaten Harry Truman) supporting white supremacy are a lesser evil than Durbin's condemning torture ceases to be a serious broker in this conversation.
dc
DC:
Again, I see no reason why we have to condemn every stupid thing every person says in order to condemn any stupid thing any person says. Limbaugh is not a US Senator speaking on the floor of the Senate, nevertheless I disagree with his using Nazis to describe feminists. The Soup-Nazi might be the only acceptable use of Nazi to describe someone's behavior, because it is entirely apolitical.
That said, I think you are being pretty charitable with your reading of what Durbin said. As Hewitt, Steyn, and other have pointed out, turning on/off the air conditioning and playing Christina Aquilera to prisoners might be torture, but there is nothing remotely Nazi-, Gulag-, or Khmer Rouge-like about it. This is not just a point of historical argument. A US Senator has compared the treatment of prisoners by Americans to concentration camps, the Gulag, and the Killing Fields, and that comparison is actively being used by the enemies of the United States to drum up support. That is demonstrably more harmful than Lott's idiotic comments.
I condemn those people now and for all time. So I never have to do it again, right?
Tom --
Here is the problem with hewitt and Steyn's rather selective reading of the evidence: It is incomplete. And since it is incomplete, and they know it is, and they are picking absurd examples, they are being disingenuous. Indeed, they are lying. Look at Durbin's entire quotation -- he las out a particular scenario. And then, in effect, asks if that could not have happened in place x, y, or z. And it could have. If the answer to the question is yes, how can the question be invalid? What about hanging people from their arms from ceilings and beating them to death? Christina Agulkara seems like such a clever little invocation. It is, alas, daftly irrelevent.
And no, you do not have to condemn everything everywhere to condemn anything. And yet there is not a scintilla of evidence anywhere that any of these guys, or any big tenter, has EVER publicly complained about comparing liberal American women, or environmentalists, with Nazis. So the credibility of these guys is rather suspect -- suddenly now it is an unacceptable epithet. It just would have been nice to have seen one word on limbaugh saying this a hundred times daily and having their not be any doubt as to the interpretation rather than a sudden level of obtuse literalism that is not willing to grant that Durbin did not mean precisely what it is convenient for you to say that he means. So it's great that you give yourself blanket protection from the ommissions of your past. It does not change the fact that the selectivity is still there.
Do you have actual evidence (you remember that, right -- its all part of that "facts" thing I find so quaint) that Durbin's words have been "used by the enemies of the United States to drum up support" independent of the torture itself? In other words, are we not allowed to point out things that a particular agenda does not want out there because our enemies might use it against us? That is a peculiar rendering of the value of free speech. And what is astoundingh, again, is that Durbin did not explicitly compare anyone to Naxzis or anyone else. he did not. What Durbin said is not even factually wrong. If you do not like certain facts, perhaps you ought not to countenence their existence.
And since when do we act or not act based on what those who hate us believe? Because if we want to moderate their actions, pulling out our support for Israel will absolutely tone down some of the opposition to us. Removing our bases from the Middle East would. Why is it that you suddenly care so much about what drives our enemies only when it allows you to grind your particular axe?
No, Trent Lott supporting white supremacy is 2004 is far worse than Durbin opposing torture. In fact, opposing torture is good. advocating white supremacy is bad. I would have expected you guys to know the difference.
dc
Okay, one by one. You may want to reread Hewitt's article: he transcribed Durbin's entire statement. Every word. Durbin described what the Americans were doing to the prisoners at Gitmo, and then said that treatment was reminiscent of actions partaken by Nazis, Soviets, and the Khmer Rouge. Durbin's words speak for themselves:
"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."
That is factually wrong. I never would have believed that turning the air conditioning off or playing loud rap music to prisoners was the actions of Nazis, Soviets in the Gulag, or Pol Pot, not because it is cute to say they wouldn't do those things, but rather because they were too busy engaging in real torture and unheard of mass murder to bother.
As I recall, and this is pretty vague because I have listened to snippets of his show about four times in my life, Ruch Limbaugh's use of "feminazi" was most prevalent during the Clinton years. Big Tent (its predecessor) started in April 2003. We are condemning that usage now, for the record, because this is when it first came up here. I ask anyone to scour our archives and find all the times we have endorsed anything Limbaugh has said or written. (Here I am saying he should be jettisoned from the greatest Americans list.) Michael Moore has said a variety of stupid things on a variety of topics, including comparing the current administration to fascists, and yet we do not insist that everyone on the left criticize Moore before they can criticize Senator Santorum. They are not equal, and we assume that Moore does not speak for the entire left.
As far as evidence goes, check Aljazeera.Net: The News Source for Jihad, linked in the Hewitt article. First sentence: "A US senator has refused to apologise for comparing the actions of US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to those of Nazis, while others have decried or defended the mandate and method used to hold prisoners there."
We are on the right side in this conflict, we are overwhelmingly acting honorably and justly in a difficult situation, and we have to believe that and act on that in order to win. It does no good for our political leadership to tell the American people and the neutral and hostile world that we are comparable to Nazis, the Soviets, or the Khmer Rouge in any way. In fact, it does great harm to our morale and the morale of our allies, and it makes our motives look dishonorable to the people on the fence who we are trying to get to buy into the democratic (i.e.: not Nazi, Soviet, or Khmer Rouge) idea.
This war is the most important issue of our time. If the Democrats cannot figure out why what Durbin said was both factually wrong and morally reprehensible, then they will never get this independent's vote. Richard Daley's comments are a great start, now let's see something from the national leadership.
(For more information on the Durbin issue--including a Lott-Durbin comparison--see Hugh Hewitt's blog, HughHewitt.com, and scroll on down.)
Tom --
Yes, we know, this is the most important isue of our time and blah blah blah and you are the man to point this out, using the most cliched approach possible, which has nothing to do with anything whatever, nor does the al Jazeera citation, which does not make the case you think it made. Al Jazeera, a news agency if a bad one, is factually pointing out their interpretation of the argument. That does not in any way, shape or form prove anything other than that even a blind squirrel gets the facts right now and again. This does not show anything about rallying enemies. Give me indications that our morale and that our allies' morale (which ones?) has been hurt meanwhile, or stop speaking with an authority that the facts as we know them do not give you. If the prtoblem is one of morale, again, perhaps those doing the torturing (and no matter how many times you repeat the mildest forms it does not change the more serious criticisms. Why you are eliding the seriousness of the charges is beyond me, unless you approve of these tactics. If so, have the balls to say so, and don't hide behind your patriotic fervor -- you're a better American than me, and all who disagree with you, I guess. And you've proven it time and time again by . . . by . . . by what exactly? Yeah, you haven't. So cut the crap with the your "most important issue of our time" irrelevencies, which in the next sentence you juxtapose with a nonsaequiter about Democrats "figuring out" things. I'm every bit as astute as you are Tom, and I am a Democrat.
And then you cite the well worn Durbin statement that does not say what you say it says, and then you say that it says that. Yet it does not. It says what I have been saying all along -- that if you isolate certain actions and take away the perpetrators, one would believe that these things could have happened in place x, y, or z, again -- both true and what I , Andrew Sullivans, and others have been saying all along.
Hewitt is wrong on Lott. He is wrong a thousand times on Lott, and I'm not so certain where you are giving him his air of authority, particularly on the segregation question. Slurp him all you want. I'll have this debbate with Hewitt any day of the week. As I have been saying here and elsewhere for two days, Lott was defending white supremacy and thought it should have continued; Durbin opooses torture and thinks it ought to end. That is the gist of it. Everything else is politics. What it comes down to is that suddenly you are hypersensitive about the tone Durbin took, which is certainly odd for anyone who has heard some of the things you are willing to let pass across your lips, to the point where you, a historian with a PhD, won't bother dealing with what matters, which is the substance. Hewitt is wrong, wrong, wrong, and unless you are actually arguing that opposing torture and supporting white supremacy are equally valid, than so are you on this point, however fervently you wave your flag so that others can see your virtue and question their own.
Oh -- and while the nice little timeline as to when you started Big Tent and when Limbaugh talked about Feminazis (wanna place a bet fo any amount of your choosing that he used the phrase after Clinton left office?), are you really saying that since that time you have only addressed issues from 2003 onward, that you never went back in time at all? That is an odd and demonstrably untrue statement. You guys talked about FDR and martinis today, and managed to mention Batman movies that antedated Limbaugh's radio show as well for example. So the fact that you chose not to address Limbaugh's past scumminess does not mean that you could not have, especially given how, (based on the fact that you wrote a letter to the editor of a college newspaper! Take that, liberal media!), you have decided that you are the gatekeeper to the Nazi-invocation question. Limbaugh would have seemed relevant. Then again, that's not what you care about, apparently. But at least you bravely took the stance that Rush Limbaugh does not belong on a list of the 100 greatest Americans. That is a very brave stance. You are to be commended.
dc
Let me sum up:
I'm done with the Rush Limbaugh argument. Our stance on Limbaugh is clear. We do not now nor have we ever defended him or his use of "feminazi." We have been outspoken in our criticism of the evocation by people all over the spectrum of Nazis and Gulags in comparison to contemporary issues.
There is no reasonable comparison between the treatment of the prisoners at Gitmo and the actions of Nazis, the Soviets in the gulags, and the Khmer Rouge. If you strip away the names from the account Durbin gave, it does not sound like something the Nazis, Soviets, or Pol Pot would do because the Nazis, Soviets, and Pol Pot were murdering millions of mostly innocent people. Any person who thinks there is a reasonable comparison to be made is either morally bankrupt or woefully historically ignorant. Either way, that person should not be a U.S. senator. But only the people of Illinois can decide who gets to be their senators. So it is up to the political parties to gag such idiocy. As Hugh Hewitt pointed out, the Republicans did that to Trent Lott. So far, the national leadership of the Democratic party isn't doing squat about Durbin.
For the record, I believe that we are treating the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay humanely, and I support our efforts there.
You see, Tom, I am neither morally bankrupt nor historically ignorant (your quotation). We cannot compare morals. We can damned well compare our relative historical backgrounds and levels of success in that field. If that is the conversation we want to have, I'll gladly have it. How shall we compare?
Durbin did not say what you said he said. So yes, I am sure from your vantage point Durbin can be condemned for saying something he did not say. He just did not say it. You continuing to misrepresent what he said is really of no moment. Fact is, there is room for interpretation on this front, unless you are saying that those who disagree with you (Andrew Sullivan, Me) simply do not read as well as you do. |Meanwhile there is no room for interpretation as to what Lott said. So either have the sack to say it or don't -- you are right, and guys like me simply do not get the language with your fine sense of writer's nuance, or maybe, just maybe, there is room for interpretation. I'll let you assert it. But then I want to compare a few things before you lecture me on use of the language.
Trent Lott supported white supremacy. Durbin opposed torture. Your willingness to compare the two continues to be astounding. That you are unwilling to see any gray area in what Durbin said, and that you claim that what he said was worse than what Trent Lott said confirms a whole lot. I'm glad you support Gitmo, and now can claim to oppose Limbaugh's use of "Feminazis". It is too bad that there is nothing on record before now to reveal that this is anything more than a stance of convenience.
You guys' stance on Rush Limbaugh's use of the word "feminazi" was only clear as of this week, when it happened to be very expedient for you to do so. Very heroic. Too bad none of us can know that it was true before now. One would think that folks with such a felicity for agitating among the cogniscenti on the college paper editorial board would have found it within themselves to put on record their opposition to Limbaugh. Apparently not.
Atlas -- give your name and we can talk. Until then, anonymity is for pussies. Some of us have the sack to put our name behind our words.
dc
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