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You are here: Home / Politics / The Worst

The Worst

by Tim F|  November 4, 20069:52 am| 20 Comments

This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity, War

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The worst Senate candidate ever:

[Katherine] Harris does love talking about Israel. She’s proud that Israelis sometimes assume she’s one of them and talk to her in Hebrew. She is a Christian but has called herself a “wannabe” Jew. During the bitterly contested recount in 2000, which she oversaw as Florida’s secretary of state, she compared herself to the Biblical character Queen Esther, who risked her life to save the Jews.

I sure hope that somebody records Harris’s victory party and throws it up on YouTube.

The worst administration ever:

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the “alternative interrogation methods” that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets and that their release — even to the detainees’ own attorneys — “could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage.” Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.

That’s a lot of newsmaking for a network of secret prisons that doesn’t exist.

Let’s clarify what this means. There doesn’t exist a free country on Earth which keeps its detention treatment as jealously private as America does. Tinpot dictatorships do that. As much as humanitarian questions play into it, basic questions of legitimacy are just as important. Every country has rules about how detainees must be treated. When an inmate or former inmate makes an allegation about his treatment, for the free countries that isn’t a problem because the entire process is transparent. But when you “disappear” inmates into black-box facilities which no lawyer or oversight body may enter then those accusations, no matter how wild, now have a certain weight. Transparency protects your reputation as a free country governed by laws.

The government could care less whether terrorists train to counter our “enhanced techniques.” First, they only work to extract confessions, not truth and second, even prepared people eventually crack under torture. It just takes longer, and they spill the same interrogator-pleasing nonsense as everybody else. I don’t think that the government really plans to go on abusing detainees and holding massive numbers incommunicado into perpetuity. Rather, during those freewheeling years of one-party rule our leaders committed so many crimes with eyes wide open that they know full well what will happen when the sunlight shines in. At this point they’re in full retreat and throwing up whatever roadblocks they can think of to forestall the inevitable day of reckoning.

The worst Defense Secretary ever:

An editorial set to appear on Monday — election eve — in four leading newspapers for the military calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The papers are the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. President Bush said this week that he wanted Rumsfeld to serve out the next two years.

“We say that Rumsfeld must be replaced,” Alex Neill, the managing editor of the Army Times, told The Virginian-Pilot tonight in a telephone interview. “Given the state of affairs with Iraq and the military right now, we think it’s a good time for new leadership there.”

Who’s next, Rumsfeld’s mom?

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20Comments

  1. 1.

    ThymeZone

    November 4, 2006 at 10:18 am

    I’m waiting for Darrell and MacBuckets to compare and contrast the Internet publishing of nuclear fission instructions to the NYT publishing of a picture of Rumsfeld’s dacha birdhouse camera blind.

    Since NYT’s action was apparently a capital offense, I would assume that Bush’s approval of the nuclear device instruction publishing means that he should be impeached, castrated, and then beheaded in a public square.

    Or, whatever punishment Darrell thinks is appropriate.

    Mac and Darrell have been so quiet lately, I can only assume that they are working on their Do-Nothing-Congress material for next January.

  2. 2.

    Pb

    November 4, 2006 at 10:19 am

    But don’t forget, Tim, we’re at war with radical Islamists who want to kill us. I know Fox News hasn’t forgotten!

  3. 3.

    ThymeZone

    November 4, 2006 at 10:52 am

    Okay, I watched the Fox film. I’m scared. I’m voting Republican.

    Thanks to all you totally dishonest lefty moonbats for trying to destroy the security of this country with your constant criticism.

  4. 4.

    Zifnab

    November 4, 2006 at 10:59 am

    They are the most vital questions of our time: How deadly is the Islamic terror threat to the world and especially to the United States? Do terrorists really want to destroy our economy, our civilization, our way of life or is this just an exaggeration?

    “Will you believe our outragous claims if we just use more question marks??? Why is everyone not still pissing themselves after five years of scare tactics????? OMG! IS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN OUTSIDE YOUR FRONT DOOR WITH AN AIRPLANE!!!???!!!???!!!”

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    November 4, 2006 at 11:07 am

    Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, also called Obsession, is a 2005 American documentary movie about Islamist teachings and goals that uses extensive Arab and Iranian television footage. It compares the threat of Islamism with that of Nazism before World War II. It is the sequel to the documentary Relentless:The Struggle for Peace in Israel.

    What is up with the right-wing and its single word title leads? “Obsession” “Relentless” (Wayne Kopping) “Godless” “Treason” (Coulter) “Unhinged” “Invasion” (Malkin) “Bankrupt” “Persecution” (David Limbaugh)

    Seriously, I wonder if conservatives actually read these rags or just take a look at the title, nod in sage agreement, and stick it on their shelves to look literate.

  6. 6.

    Pb

    November 4, 2006 at 11:19 am

    Zifnab,

    Such one-word titles are popular in music, too:

    You are an obsession
    I cannot sleep
    I am a posession
    Unopened at your feet
    There is no balance
    No equality
    Be still
    I will not accept defeat
    .

    I will have you
    Yes I will have you
    I will find a way and I will have you
    Like a butterfly
    A wild butterfly
    I will collect you and capture you

  7. 7.

    Perry Como

    November 4, 2006 at 11:41 am

    The real question is why do the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times hate America?

  8. 8.

    Hanger4

    November 4, 2006 at 12:10 pm

    These publications, all 4 are commercial ventures owned by the Gannett Corporation. They aren’t published by the military such as Stars and Stripes. Not to mention it is one board published in the 4 cited editorials not 4 different opinions. Nothing here folks.

  9. 9.

    chopper

    November 4, 2006 at 12:30 pm

    i guess this is the easiest way to keep news of torture out of the media spotlight; just make it illegal for a tortured individual to talk about it. brilliant!

  10. 10.

    harrison

    November 4, 2006 at 12:32 pm

    There doesn’t exist a free country on Earth which keeps its detention treatment as jealously private as America does.

    How the hell would you know?

  11. 11.

    Perry Como

    November 4, 2006 at 12:37 pm

    How the hell would you know?

    That’s classified, moonbat.

  12. 12.

    searp

    November 4, 2006 at 1:30 pm

    Actual military publications are, of course, subject to censorship. The Army Times, etc., ARE read by a great many military families; their editorial line can be expected to reflect the thinking of their constituency.

    I work with soldiers – enlisted, and all ranks through o-6. They think this administration is full of crap. Wouldn’t you if it was your friends dying in Iraq? They know, and no amount of spin changes that. The editorials simply are able voice publically an opinion that is shared by all ranks.

  13. 13.

    The Other Steve

    November 4, 2006 at 2:54 pm

    These publications, all 4 are commercial ventures owned by the Gannett Corporation. They aren’t published by the military such as Stars and Stripes. Not to mention it is one board published in the 4 cited editorials not 4 different opinions. Nothing here folks.

    Absolutely nothing here. As we all know Gannett Corporation is owned by Osama bin Laden Enterprises and is only interested in America losing to the terrorists, so that our women will be forced to wear the hajidababa.

  14. 14.

    Richard 23

    November 4, 2006 at 3:17 pm

    Hahaha, Pb. I never expected to see Animotion lyrics reprinted anywhere ever!

  15. 15.

    Perry Como

    November 4, 2006 at 3:18 pm

    As we all know Gannett Corporation is owned by Osama bin Laden Enterprises

    And the billionaire George Soros (“a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust”).

  16. 16.

    SeesThroughIt

    November 4, 2006 at 3:53 pm

    Seriously, I wonder if conservatives actually read these rags or just take a look at the title, nod in sage agreement, and stick it on their shelves to look literate.

    Anybody sticking screeds by Coulter, Malking, Limbaugh, etc. on their bookshelves in an attempt to look “literate” is clearly working with a different definition of “literate” than the rest of us.

  17. 17.

    ThymeZone

    November 4, 2006 at 5:13 pm

    I think TOS is on the trail of the truth here.

    This is all just part of OBL Outreach(tm), which is an initiative by AQ/OBL to improve their public acceptance here in the United States.

    Already we are hearing Baptist ministers begin to talk approvingly of OBL in their Sunday sermons across Red State America.

    Red Staters know that the key to long-term Republican rule in this country is the success of Osama Bin Laden and a constant knee to the groin of America, by Al Qaeda.

  18. 18.

    jcricket

    November 4, 2006 at 7:32 pm

    Katherine Harris is definitely the worst, but Rick Santorum (the Nazi’s are coming), Mike Dewine (Looks, here’s some fake information form 20 years ago about a staff member of my opponent) and Bill Sali (i.e. the one the Republicans won’t endorse) are running close seconds.

  19. 19.

    Kevin Lyda

    November 5, 2006 at 10:59 am

    Rumsfeld’s mom… wasn’t she nominated for the Supreme Court?

  20. 20.

    Ben

    November 6, 2006 at 9:50 am

    On a side note… I’m going to miss Katherine Harris from a purely entertainment standpoint. Her press conferences and quotes rate a 9/10 on the unintentional comedy scale. That being said… the fact that she really hasn’t had a snowballs chance makes me even more happy…

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