Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

He really is that stupid.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

This blog will pay for itself.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

In my day, never was longer.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You cannot shame the shameless.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Everybody saw this coming.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Enhanced Protest Techniques / Further to Endorsing Cole’s Opinion of Sen. Udall

Further to Endorsing Cole’s Opinion of Sen. Udall

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Max Fisher, at Vox:

… There’s something crucial we shouldn’t lose sight of: Torture was a terrible idea from the beginning because it was clear from the way the program came together that the CIA’s torture regime was never going to work, because it was based on copying Chinese torture methods designed not to elicit truth but to force false confessions…

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  1. 1.

    Iowa Old Lady

    When I hear “other countries do worse,” I put on my mom hat, and is often the case, it’s clarifying as to what I should say. In this case, it’s “we’re not talking about Billy down the street, we’re talking about you.”

  3. 3.

    Cacti

    The “other countries do it” defense is the reason why much of the rest of the world views the US as self-righteous at best, and monstrous hypocrites at worst.

    It’s much the same as when 2,996 civilian deaths on 9/11 was used to justify over 100,000 civilian deaths from invading Iraq in 2003.

  4. 4.

    JGabriel

    David Roth:

    The search for One Fucking Basic Thing We Can Agree About continues with “torture is horrific and useless.”

    As illustrated by the 538 graph above, good luck getting Republicans on board with that one.

  6. 6.

    JGabriel

    @Cacti:

    The “other countries do it” defense is the reason why much of the rest of the world views the US as self-righteous at best, and monstrous hypocrites at worst.

    On torture, the Bush administration has, in fact, turned the US into monstrous hypocrites.

  7. 7.

    BGinCHI

    This is what a Colonial power looks like when it is beginning its death throes.

    Or, the First Rule of America Awesome Fight Club: Don’t talk about anything that goes against the Master Narrative.

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    @D58826:

    My Mom’s pet phrase was ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’.

    My response to that was “…but three lefts do.”

    I was a smart-ass kid. And now, I guess, I’m a smart-ass adult.

  10. 10.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Mark Udall currently giving a career-defining speech about the CIA to an empty Senate floor, two dozen tourists, and one reporter.

    Hooray for democracy!

  11. 11.

    scav

    ‘Merca!!! No Better than the Least Common Denominator!!!

    Foam Finger Amen and Awesomeness Unleashed!

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    @Cacti:

    The “other countries do it” defense is the reason why much of the rest of the world views the US as self-righteous at best, and monstrous hypocrites at worst.

    Wait a second. What about the cries of, “But Germany is spying on us too! What do you think they are doing?”

  13. 13.

    jl

    I guess if we all start doing anything we damn please, short of serial murder, it’s all OK since there are some other people who do worse.

    Thanks for posting Udall speech. How can we get this Panetta Review released?

    And, not a fan at of all of old daddy war-grumps McCain, but glad to see he has at least some principles left and is speaking out.
    Of course, it gets him lots air time to be the only GOPer with any principles left at all, lots of national sound bite time, so there is that irresistible allure for him in speaking out… but still.. he dong something good for once after a long time of not doing anything positive.

  15. 15.

    Cacti

    @Corner Stone:

    Wait a second. What about the cries of, “But Germany is spying on us too! What do you think they are doing?”

    Yes, because spying and torture are moral equivalents.

    Dudebro derp!

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I am appalled at the number of Democrats who think that torture is sometimes or often okay.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    I wish this torture report could have come out before the midterms, instead of EBOLA! EBOLA! and ISIS! coming to kill us in our beds.

    I am glad to see that Time magazine chose Ebola fighters as their persons of the year. Courageous souls.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:

    That’s Mark Uterus you are talking about.

    I saw the comment boards before the election.

    I hope Colorado has a Rockies-sized case of buyer’s remorse over going with “What, me, a record?” Cory Gardner. Whom the Denver Post endorsed. To their shame.

  23. 23.

    beltane

    You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that’s what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant… oh, fuck it.

    We are all M. Gustav now.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    Both sides, hmmm? The torture issue is pretty much a Rorschach test.

    Why the uptick in mid-2009 in Democratic support for torture? Is it the beginnings of the RW wurlitzer over our Kenyan president?

  28. 28.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I am oftentimes somewhere ranging from disappointed to horrified with my fellow Democrats (and liberals and progressives). I am trying to be better about fighting only the real enemy, but it’s difficult.

  29. 29.

    beltane

    @Elizabelle: The right-wing, with full assistance from the mainstream media, decided to take Obama down with full-blown racism and anti-Muslim propaganda. It didn’t prevent Obama from winning a second term but did help to make this country an uglier, more hateful place.

  32. 32.

    Cacti

    @beltane:

    The right-wing, with full assistance from the mainstream media, decided to take Obama down with full-blown racism and anti-Muslim propaganda. It didn’t prevent Obama from winning a second term but did help to make this country an uglier, more hateful place.

    The ugliness and hate were always there. The past 6-years have just brought it back into the light.

  33. 33.

    Mike G

    Interesting. Whenever Republicans compare the US to other countries, it’s always against the worst places in the world —
    “At least we don’t have millions in gulags like Russia!”
    “At least you’re not making 60c an hour in China!”
    “Our fundies don’t chop off heads like in Iran!”

    You never hear them compare the US to France’s health system, Switzerland’s roads or New Zealand’s crime rate.

    It must be that “American Exceptionalism” I keep hearing about (i.e. thump my chest and brag about how awesome we are, and shout down anyone who points out ‘facts’).

    Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.

  34. 34.

    Schlemazel

    If Russia jumped of the High Bridge would you? I don’t care what the other countries do I only care what YOU do!

    WTF with 40+% of the Dems? Jay-zeus when is that fucking meteor gonna get here?

  36. 36.

    Liberty60

    @Elizabelle:

    Why the uptick in mid-2009 in Democratic support for torture?

    In my personal case, it was because I supported waterboarding Tea Partyists.

    YMMV.

  37. 37.

    beltane

    @Cacti: The hate was always there, but the haters have now been given the green light to wear their brown shirts/white robes out in the open. All that is diseased in our society has come scurrying out from the woodwork these past few years.

  39. 39.

    beltane

    @Schlemazel: During the cold war this country made every effort to at least look better than the Soviet Union. We don’t care anymore. If this country was a person it would be walking around in its soiled pajamas, hair un-combed and teeth unbrushed.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    I am trying to be better about fighting only the real enemy,

    That is probably the least Democratic thing you could possibly do.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    We have a $25 gift certificate from Murphys for coming in 2nd or 3rd on trivia night.

    When you use the certificate, lift a glass of red wine in my general direction. I was part of Team Balloon-Juice (I think we got second prize) — one of my favourite memories from my September road trip!

    And back on topic, this has to be one of the saddest things I ever read:

    Mark Udall currently giving a career-defining speech about the CIA to an empty Senate floor, two dozen tourists, and one reporter.

  44. 44.

    Cacti

    @beltane:

    During the cold war this country made every effort to at least look better than the Soviet Union. We don’t care anymore. If this country was a person it would be walking around in its soiled pajamas, hair un-combed and teeth unbrushed.

    Even the hated military industrial complex has completely let itself go in the absence of an international rival. Where they used to produce cutting edge, highly functional stuff like the F-15, F-16, F-18, etc., they now churn out execrable turds like the F-22 and F-35.

  45. 45.

    elmo

    This is the greatest, awesomest, most exceptional and amazing country that has ever existed in the history of the world, and you must hate America because you want it to be better than the gulag.

  46. 46.

    Cacti

    I see from Noisemax that Peter King has declared the torture report to be a “slander” on the good name of the CIA (stop laughing!).

    Sorry Pete, but truth, by definition, cannot be slander, libel, or defamation.

  47. 47.

    Gene108

    @jl:

    Serial murder was not a problem and viewed as necessary to maintain social order and thus we had lynchings well through the first half of the 20th century and dedicated opposition to any attempt to make the practice effectively illegal, until the 1960’s.

    In short, there’s an ugly history of abuse and torture in this country that was widely viewed as justified, where it was practiced and those adherents begat children, who begat children and so on, so such values persist in our society.

  48. 48.

    Quaker in a Basement

    “…an empty Senate floor, two dozen tourists, and one reporter.

    Greatest deliberative body in all of history, ladies and gentlemen.

  51. 51.

    burnspbesq

    Where are all the Nader 2000 voters who thought there was no difference between Bush and Gore?

  52. 52.

    Cacti

    Also too, the statements from politicians that torture “isn’t who we are” is revisionist nonsense.

    We had a vigorous, CIA-conducted torture program of suspected VC insurgents during the entire Vietnam war.

    Some of the methods used included:

    Rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electric shock (‘the Bell Telephone Hour’) rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; the ‘water treatment’; the ‘airplane’ in which the prisoner’s arms were tied behind the back, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; the use of police dogs to maul prisoners.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Cacti:

    Oh, it’s worse than that:

    In one of the interviews, King said of waterboarding and related abuses, “I don’t believe these are torture at all… We’re not talking about anyone being burned or stabbed or cut or anything like that. We’re talking about people being made to stand in awkward positions, have water put into their nose and into their mouth. Nobody suffered any lasting injuries from this.”

    Source: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/peter-king-defends-torture-prisoners-awkward-positions

  55. 55.

    Bokonon

    @Major Major Major Major: Ticket splitters in Colorado? If you want to meet them, maybe look for one of those people who read the Denver Post’s endorsement of Cory Gardner as someone who was an innovative moderate that could “work across the isles” and get things done, and wasn’t really that scary on abortion restrictions and such. You know, almost like a Republican version of Hickenlooper. A cure for partisanship and division!

    You know – that alternative universe version of Cory Gardner that the scum-sucking lying ass editorial board of the Denver Post served up to undecided voters right before the election.

    Some people are just plain trusting of authority, including the print media. Others are just plain stupid, and are easily conned.

    But I hand the Denver Post a big, heaping pile of responsibility for that weird election result.

  58. 58.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Bokonon: That endorsement absolutely baffled me. I thought that paper endorsements weren’t supposed to mean much any more though? Or is that only for presidential elections?

    ETA: OK, it didn’t baffle me, the Post is and has always been a conservative rag on the editorial side, especially after they killed off the subsumed RMN staff after the merger. Still, like, it seemed so obviously the wrong choice!

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    based on copying Chinese torture methods designed not to elicit truth but to force false confessions…

    Of no matter to such vile fascist scum as the deserting coward and the Dark Lord.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Villago Delenda Est: Actually, I would say that it did matter to them. They okayed torture and interrogators tortured in order to get false confessions. The torturers knew the results the higher-ups wanted and they got them.

  62. 62.

    pluege

    wow, that chart pretty much says being a sicko, demented sadist is non-partisan.

    And no doubt everyone of those M-Fing immoral monsters think George Washington to be ultimate Founding Father ignoring the fact that he swore off torture.

  65. 65.

    KG

    @pluege: swore off torture, and in many cases prisoners were in better conditions than soldiers during winter camps, oh, and he also engaged in regular prisoner exchanges.

  67. 67.

    Baud

    BTW, if there were any liberal Christian leaders left in this country, this is where they could really make a name for themselves.

    But there aren’t.

  68. 68.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t compose that comment properly; you’re exactly right that they wanted propaganda material and the truth, if any, was utterly secondary.

    Also, the Dark Lord needs fap material.

  73. 73.

    Jacel

    The opening segment on Rachel Maddow’s Tuesday show was phenomenal. She started with a history of how the CIA went in for torture starting in the early 1960s. Their mistreatment of a Russian KGB defector taught them that torture was NOT productive, leading to dropping that technique for quite a few years.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kristin:

    I saw somewhere that he said the torturers (not that that was the word he used) should be given the Medal of Freedom.

    Said it before, saying it again, and likely not for the last time: There are very few people on this planet whose deaths I actively and consciously wish for, let alone slow, agonizing, excruciating deaths. Dick Cheney is the exception. I will laugh, dance, and cavort merrily the day I learn that he is an ex-Dick. I will cheer, pour a glass of champagne, and put celebratory music on the CD player. I will seek out a newspaper with his horrible sneering visage on the front page and take a giant dump on it. Then and only then will I log on to Balloon Juice to share the joy with all y’all.

    That happy day cannot come soon enough. The OED unabridged hasn’t enough words in it to describe the utter loathing and contempt I have for this subhuman monster.

  76. 76.

    Schlemazel

    I simply have to add this distasteful joke because it is as dark as the situation:

    If the government can call this “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” (EIT is the new, cool, term)
    Then a rapist can claim he is implementing “Enhanced Dating Techniques”

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Thanks! I am thinking about a return trip your way sometime in 2015. Although there’s a handful of western states I’ve never visited, so I may do that trip first. Anyhow, whenever and wherever, I’ll let the appropriate Juicers know so we can plan meetups.

  80. 80.

    Schlemazel

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Yeah, anyone remember the shopping mall in Ohio or the library in LA they were definitely targets for terror attacks? Gee, I wonder how they got those tips?

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    Looked them up on Wikipedia. One is dead and the other like 90. Not exactly the future of liberal Christianity.

  82. 82.

    smintheus

    Torture was a terrible idea from the beginning because it was clear from the way the program came together that the CIA’s torture regime was never going to work…

    No, torture was a terrible idea from the beginning because it was illegal and unAmerican. Debating whether illegal policies might have “worked” is to miss the issue.

  83. 83.

    A Dem in Colorado

    @Bokonon: I know most of the press pack that covered the race. I think this was a rare instance where reporters, especially the TV media (surprisingly), let the public know just how dishonest they think Gardner is. And it wasn’t editorializing or sneaking in a hidden agenda—they let it show by repeatedly challenging him on his record and evasions.

    Also, several other editorial boards aside from the Denver Post endorsed Udall and noted Gardner’s dishonesty. The shame is it didn’t matter.

  84. 84.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Schlemazel: It wasn’t the library in LA; it was the originally named “Library Tower”, the tallest building in LA. I think shrub called it the “Liberty Tower”. It’s across the street from the LA Central Library, but is not part of the library.

  85. 85.

    KG

    @Schlemazel: after the 2001 World Series, we should have realized that AQ had blown its wad on 9/11. we should have definitely figured that out after NYE and the Super Bowl passed without incident. i don’t get how we couldn’t realize that the alleged targets didn’t make sense. either we didn’t care or were too blinded by fear to realize it. this last decade and a half has just been depressing.

  86. 86.

    Mike G

    @Mike J:

    I guess I should have specified I meant comparisons to the actual Europe, not the crumbling Muslim-dominated socialist hellhole of their fevered imaginations.

    What miserable, pinched lives they must lead, imagining mediocrity and ruin and scary, scary people everywhere outside the sainted borders of the USA.

  88. 88.

    A Dem in Colorado

    @Major Major Major Major: I don’t really know if the endorsement mattered to many voters, and frankly don’t have the stomach to really think about it a lot. But it certainly helped reinforce the narrative that Udall was a one-note candidate and helped Gardner get away with his lies and evasions. I don’t think “The Narrative” is the end-all thing, but the editorial exemplified conventional wisdom in exactly the way the GOP would have wanted.

  89. 89.

    JPL

    @Baud: They were quite active during the day. I can’t think of anyone recently that was as effective and had a large following.

    The nuns of the bus have been great dealing with inequality and the United Methodist Church has been progressive.
    I haven’t heard any religious leader speak out against torture.

  90. 90.

    A Dem in Colorado

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Mark Udall currently giving a career-defining speech about the CIA to an empty Senate floor, two dozen tourists, and one reporter.

    There’s a painful poignancy, isn’t there? It also is a too-perfect metaphor for Sen. Udall’s career and approach to politics. A very hard worker, dedicated to tough and important issues that aren’t sexy, a voice in the wilderness…and only able to find his voice too late and unable to drive the media agenda.

    What a goddam shame.

  91. 91.

    Schlemazel

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    thats the one – I couldn’t remember anything other than the library part – or in Boy Blunders case LIE-barry.

    @KG:
    We went 10 years between attacks from OBLs boys, our reaction to 9/11 was irrational & a strong leader with a decent sense of history and a clear idea of defending the country would have calmed rather than inflamed.

  92. 92.

    Schlemazel

    @smintheus:
    The problem is you are fighting with a bunch of amoral, anti-intellectual, unAmerican thugs who would only be against torture if they understood it was also ineffective. The other arguments would be like explaining opera to a sow.

  93. 93.

    Tree With Water

    @Cacti: “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them”.

    Hunter Thompson 2004

  97. 97.

    Bokonon

    @A Dem in Colorado: I agree. The shame is that all that other press coverage (and the other editorial endorsements) just didn’t matter in the end.

    But I think that the Denver Post’s endorsement really did make a difference, at least in the Denver area. It gave Gardner cover, allowed Gardner to shuck off the most damaging charges against him, while depriving Udall of oxygen. And it gave a lot of people in the squishy middle an excuse to engage in ticket-splitting. I would give it a point or two swing in the polls. Plus momentum in the final stretch of the Senate race.

    Anecdotal evidence – I can’t tell you how many people here in the Denver suburbs I heard repeating the Post’s characterization of Udall’s campaign as “obnoxious” and “single issue” after the Denver Post issued that editorial. Those words really stuck. They had an influence. And people could then go ahead and vote for Gardner happy that they were voting for “change” without … well … you know … the bad feelings that you get when you vote for a lying smiley smiler with an extremist voting record.

    It didn’t help that Udall’s campaign (and the independent groups running all those ads for him) really was tone deaf and single issue. They leaned right into that punch.

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Wag: That is more than a bit harsh and unfair. The guy has been doing very good work on often unpopular issues since he was elected. It takes a spine to do that.

    ETA: Of course you know all that since you worked toward his re-election.

  99. 99.

    smintheus

    @Schlemazel: There’s another problem: You leave an opening for torture apologists to argue that we should look to develop more effective forms of torture.

    Would you debate the efficacy of locking suspected criminals up without a trial? Seems to me that supposed utility is beside the point.

  102. 102.

    Schlemazel

    @smintheus:
    If 60% of goopers & 40% of Dems favored lock up without trial than, yes, I would argue the effectiveness of it because obviously too many do not get the morality of it.

    If someone suggests we work on more effective methods I would volunteer them to be the subjects.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @beltane:

    Peter King also wouldn’t have considered the rack or “pressing” to be torture since they didn’t involve stabbing.

    Can’t we just skip all these ineffective devices and go straight to Madame La Guillotine?

  108. 108.

    Major Major Major Major

    @smintheus: I dunno there are plenty of unjust laws. You wouldn’t ask people not to question drug laws, for instance. Now for something as obviously cut and dried as torture, which is definitely illegal for a reason, and has been thoroughly debated for centuries and such, that should be the end of the debate. But it’s just an argument from authority at its heart and those are often lousy arguments.

  109. 109.

    Gex

    Somewhat tired of the kudos McCain’s getting now, given that he refused to speak so clearly on the issue when we were making these decisions.

    Yeah, he’s on the right side now. But we might not be having these discussions if he could have spoken more forcefully against torture as an established Republican. The chart above shows that torture only has majority support with those guys. And perhaps that’s because this was treated like a partisan issue by people like McCain.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Major Major Major Major: there are also exception to laws for things like exigent circumstances. Going with illegality and illegality only allows a defense of “but we really needed to, ticking timebomb, mushroom cloud garble garble garble.”

  114. 114.

    Elizabelle

    @efgoldman: I look forward to seeing you and the marvelous Mrs. ef again in 2015 too. Either in northern climes or nearer the fever swamp on the Potomac.

  115. 115.

    Schlemazel

    @smintheus:
    People know torture is illegal but still support it because “we need it now”. That is the amoral position of 60%R/40%D. They do not give a shit it is illegal. Your position is technically correct but it will not will the debate.

  116. 116.

    MomSense

    @Mike G:

    I met a woman in the coffee shop and noticed her Swedish accent. She told me that she married an American and moved here. When I asked her why on earth she would leave Sweden for the US we had a good laugh. She told me that every American she had met so far had asked her if she had married so she could get out of Sweden. People here have no clue how good life is in other countries. Her husband was in the military and they were pretty much counting the days until they could go back to Sweden.

  117. 117.

    beltane

    @MomSense: My and my husband’s entire extended families live in different parts of Western Europe. All of them enjoy a higher quality of life than we do and none of them envy us for living here. We are seriously thinking of joining them.

  118. 118.

    Anne Laurie

    @beltane:

    Ferguson protesters were named 1st runner-up to be Time’s Person of the Year. A bit surprising, they probably would have “won” outright if not for fear of offending whatever is left of Time’s readership

    Didn’t the “award” go to the people fighting Ebola? The Ferguson protestors are awesome & essential for us Americans, but the fighting against Ebola is global.

  120. 120.

    MobiusKlein

    @Liberty60: Why uptick in 2009?
    Because party identification is not a fixed thing.

    After 2008, I suspect many of the otherwise R leaners identified as D. They didn’t all change every position they held previously.

  122. 122.

    Santa Fe

    @MomSense:

    Can’t believe I’ve finally reached this point, but do any folks have recommendations on reading and research for potential ex-patriates? :)

    D.

  124. 124.

    smintheus

    @Major Major Major Major: It’s an argument for respect for the law.

    If the torture-lovers want torture, then they should be told they need to change the law. In fact, they would need to abrogate international treaties and amend the Constitution. Let’s see if they have the balls to introduce a constitutional amendment authorizing torture. If not, then they open themselves up to mockery.

  125. 125.

    Linnaeus

    @smintheus:

    No, torture was a terrible idea from the beginning because it was illegal and unAmerican.

    Agree with you about the former, though the graph in the post (among other things) doesn’t inspire confidence in the latter.

  126. 126.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Elizabelle: Foreign Policy (from 2012):

    So why exactly have Americans become more supportive of torturing and assassinating terrorists under Obama than they were under President George W. Bush? Many reasons, I suspect. But three possibilities seem most likely. First, it’s always easier to support controversial policies after the controversy fades. Maybe respondents feel more comfortable supporting torture and assassination when Christopher Hitchens isn’t waterboarding himself, Abu Ghraib photos aren’t plastered all over the Internet, and Saturday Night Live isn’t doing those Lynndie England skits. Or as Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor Matt Baum put it more eloquently, “It is possible that support for these policies hit a low point after the Abu Ghraib scandal and has more recently rebounded to its prior equilibrium.”

    Second, there may be an “only Nixon can go to China” logic at work. Because Republicans have a general reputation for being tough on national security and Democrats have (or at least used to have) a general reputation for being weak on national security, Americans are more likely to think assassinations and harsh interrogation practices are justified if a Democratic president uses them. Conversely, they are more likely to trust diplomacy when the president conducting it is a Rambo-minded Republican. But this logic does not quite fit the facts. Although it is true that Obama has continued and even expanded many contentious Bush-era counterterrorism policies — military commissions, indefinite detentions, and the targeted-killing-by-drone program — harsh interrogation policies are not among them. On Jan. 22, 2009, two days after his inauguration, Obama signed an executive order that made waterboarding and any other interrogation methods not listed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3 illegal.

    This leaves option three: media effects — specifically, the influence of spy movies and TV shows. This sounds silly, I know, but the data say otherwise. As I noted in my last column, spy-themed entertainment has skyrocketed over the past decade or so. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that the boundary between fake spies and the real world is blurring in some disconcerting ways, from CIA directors pondering Hollywood hypotheticals in their confirmation hearings to Twitter users thanking Jack Bauer when Osama bin Laden was killed.

    Makes sense. Culture matters.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  128. 128.

    sm*t cl*de

    An increase from 50% to 70%? Apparently the Republican leadership have managed to redefine “Enthusiasm for murderous sadism” from a frequent corollary of party membership to an actual requirement. Now it’s another purity test.

    There are probably also a lot of people who belatedly realised that when they voted Republican they were in effect supporting murderous sadism, at which point they decided to become actively enthusiastic in their support, because the alternative was to admit that they were politically stupid. Human beings don’t seem to like admitting to error. There is nothing so stupid that cognitive-dissonance reduction can’t make it stupider.

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