Sometimes you just never can tell what the fauxtrage du jour from the right will be, and this one caught me off-guard (or, in Republican speak, with my pants down and my hand underneath a bathroom stall):
During the course of the hearing, Congressman and Obama Superdelegate William Delahunt (MA-10) asked Mr. Addington about water boarding. Mr. Addington responded that he would not go into details because Al Qaeda is probably watching.
Congressman Delahunt’s response was, “I’m glad they finally have a chance to see you.”
Mr. Delahunt now denies he meant what he said. But what he clearly said was “I’m glad they finally have a chance to see you.” Al Qaeda now knows the face of one of the men who relentlessly pursues its henchmen and deals with their interrogations. Mr. Addington volunteered for public service, not a death sentence with Congressional encouragement. Mr. Delahunt is both a vile liar and a cowardly lion willing to roar down at Mr. Addington while encouraging terrorists to do his dirty work in a war he has been ineffective at stopping.
The left, while attacking Charlie Black for stating the obvious — that a terrorist incident helps the GOP politically because they are seen as more competent in the national security arena — is defending this degradation of congressional discourse and vile swipe at Mr. Addington.
This discourse — a member of Congress glad Al Qaeda has a face it can pursue — is beneath the dignity of the Congress and beneath the dignity of civil discourse in this country.
They are, apparently, serious. Think about that for a minute.
They are now demanding censure of Delahunt under the laughable premise that Al Qaeda is now going to hunt down David Addington. Never mind that John Yoo, who is just as responsible for much of administration policy, has had his face plastered all over everything for years and has been the target of approximately ZERO assassination attempts. At any rate, I think after they punish Delahunt, I think they should go after some other more high profile sources, who have clearly been posting Addington’s likeness in an attempt to have him offed by evil terrrorists. We can start with the following:
The Associated Press
Wikipedia
US News
Matt Yglesias
MSNBC
The Washington Note
Granted, finding all of those pictures requires a passing familiarity with the internet and “a google,” and these are Republicans at Red State and McCain supporters, so maybe this technology eludes them, too. But if Al Qaeda is watching C-Span as Mr. Addington asserted in one of his dodges during questioning, I am betting they use the intertrons.
Regardless, on and on it goes- it seems as if the entire establishment is calling out for Al Qaeda to attack Addington. And mind you, this is the same media that tried to have Cheney and Rumsfeld offed by publishing photos of their vacation homes, so this is not a new thing for these terrorist enablers.
And if you don’t find it troubling enough that all of these sources have “lowered the discourse” and provided Al Qaeda with a target to pursue, you don’t even realize the true extent of the perfidy- here is an entire PBS show flashing pictures of Addington and other members of the inner circle (event moving pictures, Sen. McCain) for Al Qaeda. A government subsidized network, in league with the terrorists.
But, my friends, brace yourself. It only gets worse. If you look here, you will see that the rot is deep and the fix is in. The White House itself is in on this:
Vice President Dick Cheney attends a classified briefing, Friday, May 11, 2007, aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf. Seated with the Vice President from left is U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Michele Sison; U.S. naval commander Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff; USS John C. Stennis Strike Group Commander Rear Admiral Kevin Quinn; Chief of Staff to the Vice President David Addington. White House photo by David Bohrer.
In fact, a quick search of the White House website reveals several photos of Addington, as well as information that could be used to “pursue” him. Why does the White House hate America?
Oh, and by the way, this quote from David Addington somehow seems relevant:
“We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court.”
HAHAHA, funny shit, amirite, Red State?
*** Update ***
The Newshoggers have heard of “a google” too. And really, anyone who thinks this is a defense of Delahunt is just looking for an excuse to be outraged. Delahunt may be a total jackass, and I don’t know why he said what he said, but the notion that Al Qaeda now has a fix on Addington’s “super duper secret” identity is even dumber than Delahunt’s initial remarks. As one commenter quipped below, maybe we should just give Addington a Valerie Plame mask.
JL
Red State preaches to the same people that talk show hosts do. The ones that don’t realize that McCain and the RNC have a seal but instead treat Obama’s seal as being disrespectful to the office of the President. Of course if you listen to Boortz you would think that China can drill in our territorial waters not Cuba’s. The truth is something they don’t care about. It,s all about how many folks you can scam.
demkat620
Don’t these guys ever get tired of being this predictable?
I’m exhausted by their bullshit.
bago
APPEASER! APPEASER!
Notorious P.A.T.
A question for people older than me (I’m 34): There *was* a time in this country, wasn’t there, when people who thought Congress was in league with our nation’s mortal enemies, and actively, knowingly plotted with them to have Americans killed, were confined to street corners with urine-soaked refridgerator cartons and tinfoil hats, right?
Please tell me this was so, and that it could some day be that way again.
priscianus jr
I don’t think anybody even pays attention to these guys any more, other than the so-called 28-percenters, whose numbers at this point are probably a lot lower than 28 percent. They just sound more and more desperate to get anybody to listen to them. This looks like another job for for Jon Stewart.
JL
John, Isn’t it time for cat pictures or a blog about beer. This has a tough week and a post about Red State only adds to the angst.
Ted
I had forgotten about that quote. “We’re THIS close to tearing down another barrier to dictatorship.”
MarkusB
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
Here I am,
Stuck in the stupid with you.
(I apologize to Stealer’s Wheel for this.)
Ted
Lowest I’ve seen so far is 23%. So at this point I think 28 could be on the high end. Maybe even an outlier.
nightjar
In the ever shrinking relevance of the wingnut echo chamber, no one can hear you scream.
Ted
And speaking of presidential job approval polls, IIRC Nixon got down to 22%, and then resigned (who knows how low it could have gone). I’m better Georgie beats that before his rule is over.
Gus
RedState is the digital equivalent.
Bubblegum Tate
I like how they tossed Obama’s name in there even though he’s not the one who committed this horrible, horrible, treasonous, murderous act.
They’re telegraphing their attacks. Fortunately, the attacks are so stupid as to border on dadaism
gbear
Six more months to get thru. This is gonna feel like an eternity. Obama’s first act should be to load them all onto a space shuttle and find em a new home far away from earthly harm.
Zifnab
Remind me again of the last asswipe Republican to get shot at. Hell, remind me of the last assassination attempt on any political leader. Other than the wacko who pulled a gun on Reagen, I can’t think of a single serious political gunslinger in my lifetime.
Dreggas
the problem is they’d probably be picked up by aliens and either they’d decide we were the stupidest fucking people in the universe and pass us by or destroy us to keep us from spreading.
dbrown
And if the bomb is a NK nuke and used against washington and wipes out the bush/cheney toture gang, the court, congress and many tens of thousands of people, will red state be happy to get a judge? Sick is not even close to what these blood thirsty cowards are.
frogspawn
Yes, grasshopper, there was, and in their blackened mouths a single word:
Thunderbird.
mikefromtexas
Anyone read ‘The Marching Morons’ by C M Kornbloth??? Describes the Redstaters to a tee.
MikeL
Sorry, John, Redstate can’t hear you over the sound of their amazing social insight .
Ripley
Delahunt probably uses Scoop, that fucking LIEberal traitor.
God damned Scoop. SCOOOOOOP!!!
Ripley
Why WordPress wanna steal a brother’s !’s?
SCOOOOOOOP!eleventy-eleven!
Ripley
Damn it!
Use your imaginations, kids.
JL
Time Magazine, the Page, has Sunday’s talk show guests up. Face The Nation has Lieberman and Wes Clark. How many times will Lieberman whine?
TheFountainHead
Every time something RedState spews out gets me incensed, I go and read this, laugh a little, and relax.
D0n Camillo
Maybe we should lock up Mr Addington and Mr. Yoo for their own safety. It wouldn’t have to be long — just for the duration of the war on terror.
Mike S
I firmly believe that Redstate runs No Quarter. It just doesn’t seem possible that two groups could be as stupid or full of mock outrage as those two.
TheFountainHead
Best idea ever. In fact, I can think of a few more people whose safety is not certain, and ought to be “temporarily sequestered”.
The Commander Guy
The Corner is also in on the Stoopid, too. Not only that, but VDH is waiving the the white flag of surrender and, apparently, no longer cares much for America.
Just Some Fuckhead
That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing.
Bruce Moomaw
How the hell did I end up being one of the most conservative commenters on this blog? It IS hard to interpret Delahunt’s comment as meaning anything other than that he was glad that al-Qaida now has a clearer idea of what Addington looks like — which was both morally iresponsible and idiotic of Delahunt, and which, sure enough, the Right is already busily using to attack the entire Congressional investigation of the Torture Brigade.
What Delahunt SHOULD have done, of course, was to simply ask Addington, “Then would you be willing to testify to us about waterboarding in closed session?”, and then sit back and watch the man squirm. As it is, Delahunt just further bolsters Kevin Drum’s observation that the Bushites have gotten away with a lot of their crap because the Congressmen of BOTH parties on the committees that were supposed to be monitoring them are stupid and/or irresponsible.
Ted
Well, they DO abhor science. We can always tell them what they thought in the olden days: Venus is lovely. Enjoy the vacation.
JL
Bruce they both acted like arrogant toddlers. Keith Olbermann just talked about them and they jointly made the worse person list.
ed.
You need to read more.
Gerald Ford, 1975. GH Bush,1993. GW Bush, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidential_assassination_attempts
QuickRob
It’s not a big deal like some people (RedState) make it, but it’s a pretty shitty thing for Delahunt to say, and it isn’t exactly becoming of a person in any kind of leadership position.
“Bring it on” from Bush was wrong and this from Delahunt is wrong. Bush was wrong to taunt our enemies – who happen to include untold number of mindless religious zombies. Delahunt is wrong for bringing the bar of acceptable professional and respectable discourse so low that it now must be examined to wonder if this amount of classlessness is actually acceptable.
For both Delahunt and Bush there are much more appropriate and effective ways to say things.
John Cole
It is even harder to deny that there are thousands of pictures of Addington on the intertrons, to include on the official White House web site. That is kind of the point. Delahunt may be a jackass (I know literally nothing about the guy), but pretending that because of him, they now know what Addington looks like, is the height of absurdity. Not to mention, if that were an issue, you would think at least one person in the WH or Congress would have thought about a closed session to “protect his identity” rather than, you know, broadcasting it on national television.
JGabriel
Ooh, this is a nice bit of rhetoric:
Since every Democratic member of Congress – both the Senate and the House – is a Democratic Superdelegate, every single thing a Congressmember does that the right dislikes will now be tied to Obama, because they’re all his superdelegates.
Oh, and every Democratic Governor too!
Everything they do, all Democratic Congressmembers and Governors, it’s all Obama’s fault.
Wingnuts. Sigh.
.
QuickRob
For a lot of the zealous suicidablists who become al Qaeda’s humans bombs it’s not exactly deep research and expert planning that describe their paths to paradise.
Most of these chuckleheads, like the morons in Glasgow, aren’t built for martyrdom and end up screwing up due to piss poor planning.
al Qaeda isn’t a centrally-planned Hydra so much as a pathetic religious death cult that can occasionally and effectively entrance some young morons into blowing himself up in public. It’s morons like that who see this quote from Delahunt on the news or on Daily Kos that probably are the one we should worry about.
Redleg
The internet wingnuts (aka Keyboard Kommandos) are outraged at Delahunt’s comments but are not quite outraged enough by the 9-11 attacks to actually go down to the Army or USMC recruiting office to enlist to kick some terr’ist ass.
Yeah, that’s right- I’m questioning yer manhood, wingnuts.
CapMidnight
So give him a Valerie Plame mask.
Oh, wait…
Maybe one of Karl Rove‘s chins as a disguise.
Bob In Pacifica
Luckily for John Yoo, he is located at that top-secret bastion known as the University of California, Berkeley.
JGabriel
Notorious P.A.T.:
Nope. It’s a long and glorious (or debasing, depending on your point of view) tradition in this great land of ours.
Other recent examples include Richard Nixon (founder, House Un-American Activities Committee) and Joe McCarthy.
.
RSA
Exactly. Delahunt’s offhand comment (which I didn’t really get) may give some insight into his thought processes, but it doesn’t change reality one bit. Members of Al Qaeda aren’t watching TV thinking, “Wow, I never thought of going after the architect of the U.S.’s torture policies. Thanks, Mr. Delahunt! We’ll get right on it!”
nightjar
And it’s patriotic souls like you Quickrob who remind us daily of the dangers we face hourly from the murderous hords of Jihadi’s that live under our beds.
We thank you and Mr Addy for your brave wordplay and
singlesimple minded efforts to embrace complete security and sacrifice our liberty to the point we deserve neither.Tsulagi
So all RedState Directors’ united on this major issue, a clear slap in the face against God and Country? That’s what I like about RedState, you can always count on them for the comedy. Seems on this one they all reached for another gold ring. They’ve got a lot of practice.
Skimmed the comments. The usual. But liked when one guy essentially asked is this really a big deal? Moe put him in his place. Of course it’s a big deal Mighty Moe said, plus since all the Directors were pissed, fair warning, he had his mighty blam stick at the ready to battle evilsayers.
And these are the guys Dems run away from? Amazing.
Quackers
Delahunt caused the Birth of an Outrage.
Joshua Norton
One usually has to watch professional wrestling to find this level of sincerity.
Catfish N. Cod
More worthless outrage from Max Boot. After a well-written and well-argued main point, Boot adds this completely unnecessary dig:
But I get the sense that Marshall and Sullivan, like many of their antiwar compatriots, don’t really care about whether we win or lose in Iraq. They simply want to get out, and damn the consequences. That brings up another historical analogy that I’m sure they would rather forget: the way we pulled out of South Vietnam after the defeat of the North’s Tet and Easter Offensives when a decent outcome (namely the long-term preservation of South Vietnam’s independence) was within our grasp. A lot of antiwar voices back then said it would actually be good for the locals if we left, just as they now say it would be good for Iraq if we skedaddled. Tell it to the Vietnamese boat people or the victims of the Cambodian killing fields.
Because it’s all about Vietnam. In fact, it’s always been about Vietnam. Beyond the spin and lies, beyond the WMDs and the Axis of Evil, beyond even blood for oil, has been this conviction that This Time We’re Going To Do Vietnam Right. It’s been there the whole time, like a slimy undercurrent… that can’t be filtered from the river.
I swear, if life extension technology is developed and the Baby Boomers are still alive in 2100, they’ll be swearing that we must/cannot withdraw from the Pluto colony because it would be Just Like Vietnam. And if they build time machines and go back to the Roman Empire, they would argue that withdrawing from Dacia and Britannia is Just Like Vietnam. Then, when they die, they’re sent to Dante’s Hell, where one side must continually stand in one place to receive punishment while the other must continually withdraw; not because the devils force them to, but because to do otherwise would be Just Like Vietnam.
Wolfdaughter
Catfish:
I am a 62, and therefore a Boomer. Like John Cole, I’m a recovering Republican, except that I’ve been recovering for more than 20 years instead of just a couple of years. Not a put down, John, welcome to the good side, just comparing length of recovery. Since I was raised to be a conservative Republican, I did not oppose the Vietnam war, although I was never an enthusiastic supporter either.
This Boomer did and still does oppose the Iraq debacle, and like many others on the Left, correctly foresaw the results. I wrote to Arizona’s 7 congressmen in September of 2002, urging them to oppose the AUMF, and stating my reasons for opposing the Iraq war, all of which have proven to be correct.
Please don’t tar all Boomers with this Just Like Vietnam. I will remind you that millions of us Boomers were also marching and vehemently protesting the Vietnam War, and a few of us even died protesting. In fact, I would have to say that at least two-thirds of us who were in college at least, were very much opposed to that war.
The people to blame are the neocons and their supporters, many of whom are NOT Boomers, BTW. So please aim your comment at those who deserve it.
El Cid
On yet another ritualistic invocation of Cambodia to justify the continued occupation of Iraq.
Cambodians were slaughtered both by the bombing and then carpet bombing of their country by U.S. war hawks from 1965 to 1973.
That bombardment slaughter — as was fully predicted at the time by our own CIA — ended up handing power to the formerly fringe lunatic Khmer Rouge guerrilla.
The Khmer Rouge directly and the starvation indirectly from the bombardment-caused destruction of their country is what killed millions.
It was the U.S. warhawk bombardment of Cambodia which unleashed the killing fields — not our unwillingness to keep slaughtering them from the air.
It is utterly ludicrous that the same warhawk nimrods who never gave the slightest flip about Cambodian civilian lives when they were being slaughtered from the air and their nation and agriculture being destroyed still try to lecture us about how it was somehow the liberals who are at fault for the slaughters they caused.
The Khmer Rouge was stopped when neighboring Vietnam invaded and threw them out, and no one in the U.S. had the slightest idea of any way the U.S. could have done it. The warhawks didn’t mind, either, when the U.S. insisted that the Khmer Rouge keep their seat at the UN.
The right and the warhawks can keep trying to blame the Cambodian slaughters — both of them, the US warhawks aerial slaughter and the logical outcome Khmer Rouge slaughter — on teh leff and teh liberals, but it was they who caused it.
RSA
My general reaction to people like Max Boot is, “You know, a lot of antiwar voices back in 2002 and 2003 said it would be a bad idea to invade Iraq, but war cheerleaders like you helped it happen. And if you were wrong then, why should anyone think you’re right now? So shut the fuck up.”
Xanthippas
It seems considerably more likely to me that he was mocking the idea that Al Qaeda is seriously watching C-SPAN, though I’d have to check the tape to be sure. But honestly, like John said, can anybody really think it’d be that hard to figure out what Addington looks like? Even a stupid member of a Congress?
cleek
nah. it’s more like the kind of angry, frustrated insult you wish you had phrased better, a half second after it’s out of your mouth.
Rich Kid: “You’re poor and your pants are ripped.”
Poor Kid: [angry exasperation] “Yeah, well you are pants!”
Rich Kid: “Huh?”
RedState: [dementedly] “Poor Kids want men to wear skirts!” fapfapfap!
Zifnab
I’ll say this, if it hadn’t been for Vietnam, I suspect we’d be hearing President Obama talk about staying the course. But beyond that, no one under 30 knows dick shit about the Cambodian killing fields. Hearing conservatives wax stupid about evil liberals and the Khmer Rouge doesn’t exactly resonate. When the GAO puts out a new “oh fuck, Iraq” report every other weekend, its kinda hard to sympathize with hypothetical Iraqi genocide victims. This is particularly true when we’ve been deliberately sequestered from news about the murder of innocent Iraqis.
Catfish N. Cod
Wolfdaughter,
I appreciate your comment partially, but my frustration goes beyond the neocons. I noticed a second contingent of Baby Boomers who opposed the war, not because it was a bad idea or presented in a dishonest way or because it was executed according to a flawed plan, but simply and solely because it was Just Like Vietnam(TM).
If you opposed the war on the merits from the beginning, I applaud you. I was fooled because I thought our military (and I included ex-CJCS Colin Powell) was too professional to allow such an obvious bunch of fuck-ups to control operational planning. The events of April 9, 2003, in which we had no operational plan to hold Baghdad upon its fall, proved me wrong; I immediately turned against the war and held that position consistently thereafter. Like Obama, I’m not anti-war, just anti-dumb-war — and this was the dumbest war the United States has ever fought, including Vietnam.
But I observed a percentage of the antiwar movement that didn’t really care about the merits of the conflict, where even a competent Administration commanding a real U.N. coalition and with honest intelligence and OPPLAN would have been roundly condemned — because it was Just Like Vietnam(TM). I can stand that barely less than I can the neocons, because it’s the same disconnection of brain cells in favor of re-enacting their youth (just the mirror image political position).
But you’re right in one respect — I should not have used the pronoun “they” in one place without a clear antecedent. Not all Boomers are neocons or antiwar flakes; some have brains and know how to use them. I thought it obvious I wasn’t referring to them, and I apologize for the confusion.
Catfish N. Cod
But beyond that, no one under 30 knows dick shit about the Cambodian killing fields.
I know that the Khmer Rouge were a spillover effect from the Vietnam War; that the chaos engendered by the war, which included covert missions trying to prevent North Vietnamese flanking manueveres, made it easier for the Khmer to take power; and that the killing fields were the ultimate result of trying to implement a Great Leap Forward-style purist-Maoist state.
Is that enough to qualify as more than d*ck sh*t, buster?
El Cid
Catfish Cod: The U.S. did much more to hand power to the formerly marginal Khmer Rouge than covert missions.
If you’re curious, here‘s a layout of the 1965 – 1973 bombing and carpet bombing of Cambodian society, particularly its villages, and its effects, based on the US Air Force’s own bombing data among on-ground evidence.
For some perspective, a reflection by the lead scholar of the Cambodian Genocide Project, Ben Kiernan (PDF Only):
I don’t think U.S. warhawks were trying to help the Khmer Rouge attain power; it’s just not in their nature to give a sh*t about what happens when their war dreams end up slaughtering massive, massive numbers of civilians, and it’s only when the killing is done by the other side do they seem concerned for the lives lost.
Particularly if the right’s ritual invocations of such false concerns for the lives of Cambodians allow them to forever try to blame leftists & liberals after the fact for the Khmer Rouge takeover their own warhawkery caused.
KevinD
I’m sorry, I don’t understand. How would a terrorist incident make them look MORE competent at national security?
I guess that’s more of that “The Violence is Increasing because We’re Winning” Rumsfeldian circular logic.
ched
If only.
Tony J
Really? How would you tell? Since the anti-war movement were up against an incompetent Administration violating a U.N. Resolution they’d forced through the Security Council themselves with clearly fabricated intelligence and no OPPLAN at all beyond Smash Everything + ??? = Victory!
In fact, to be brutally honest, this sounds an awful lot like the “Screw your ‘facts’. You’d be against it anyway because You Hate America, so your opinion doesn’t count!” retort that wingnut posters always fell back on when they couldn’t debate the invasion on its merits.
It wasn’t true then, and it’s still not true today.
Thomas Jackson
Wow good to see monnbat thinking at its best. Pjlame bad, Delahunt good? But at least we can all associate a face and a name with Delahunt, who as we all know was a prime architect of the Afghan invasion and is paymaster for Al Queda turncoats.
I wouldn’t want to be Delahunt when the terrorists realize how large a threat he is to Bin Laden.
Randall
Do you know the merits of the conflict? Could you enlighten us with your keen obsevations?
This is probably going to be an ongoing problem.
pseudonymous in nc
it’s more like the kind of angry, frustrated insult you wish you had phrased better, a half second after it’s out of your mouth.
Exactly: Delahunt made a stupid mess of a comment, the kind that inevitably leads to l’esprit de l’escalier.
Frankly though, it would be good for Americans to see Future War Crime Hall of Famers Addington and Yoo before their date at the Hague. If anyone in the wider nation gave a shit about congressional hearings, that is.
bklyn
But I observed a percentage of the antiwar movement that didn’t really care about the merits of the conflict, where even a competent Administration commanding a real U.N. coalition and with honest intelligence and OPPLAN would have been roundly condemned—because it was Just Like Vietnam™.
The point is that IF there had been a competent administration that alowed honest intelligence you would have understood what you observed. That being that there was no merit to the Iraqi coflict.
nezua
they got pissed because they were mocked. they are not used to being mocked when they pull out the terror card. and for once, someone who should have backed down just made fun of them. they are flipping out because they fear this could become standard fare. nothing is more disempowering than open ridicule. and usually signifies the inevitable wane of whatever power is now the subject of ridicule. that’s one way to see it at least. i like that way.
pbg
It was a perfectly fine comment.
Let me unpack it a bit:
“If You’re soooo scared of Al Qaeda, Mr. Addington, then it’s a Gawdam miracle that you’re courageous enough to show your face in public. These Al-Qaeda super sleeper cells must have you in absolute fear of your life. That must, there foree, be the explanation of why you haven’t been aable to capture or kill Osama bin Laden inn almost seven years , with all the men, firepower and technology of the United States of America It couldn’t be because he’s a convenient boogeyman, no–they must be mutant Ninja telepaths!”
“Sorry for making you go to some place as dangerous as the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Addington–I guess you have togo back to your secret pork-lined underground bunker now, eh? To do some more cowering?
Joe Momma
They are now demanding censure of Delahunt
And will most likely get it. If there’s one thing Reid and Pelosi really enjoy, it’s the taste of Republican penis.
Stuart Eugene Thiel
Why would Al-Q want to off Addington? He’s aiding their cause right where he is: dismantling the American Way of Life so they won’t have to.
Dr. Wu
Wingnuts already aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the marquee, and the incessant deluge of crap they are being fed by right-wing noise machine can’t be making them any smarter.
Their corporate masters may be killing the golden geese–at some point their useful idiots will be unable to make it to a polling place because they will be unable to operate a doorknob. Thank goodness for slip-on shoes, or many of them would be walking around barefoot.
ron
seemed to me delahunt was making a (clumsy) mockery of addington’s bullshit excuses.
tigrismus
I agree it was mocking the bullshit, but it was also pointing out how hard it has been to get these guys to testify: Addington refused to appear before Congress at least once before and had to be subpoenaed.
Todd Dugdale
If we are to buy Addington’s defence that “Al-Qaeda may be watching”, then we are going to have to pretty much shut down most media coverage.
I’m pretty sure Al-Qaeda is on to the fact that we torture suspects. Addington confirming it is not the intelligence bonanza for Al-Qaeda that he seems to think it is. Delahunt was right not to take this facile cop-out seriously. It’s straight out of the McCarthy ’50s: the Commies might be listening. They’re everywhere, you know.
Maybe they should have pixellated out his face, disguised his voice, and referred to him as “Mr X” just to get the maximum spook effect. In fact, why not do that to everyone on TV? You don’t want to make it easier on Al-Qaeda, do you? We’re in a time of war, after all.
Max Renn
I watched the hearing and my take on the D-hunt comment was pretty simple: that Addington was exposed to the world, including ANY Al Qaeda watchers of C-SPAN, as a moral toad, bitter, petty, and slimy.
That’s what I took the Congressman to mean.
bartkid
>This discourse — a member of Congress glad Al Qaeda has a face it can pursue
Cue the Murtha clip where he points out that anyone in an air conditioned Washington, DC office is NOT fighting the war.
Some people just never got over watching Red Dawn.