I’m generally not in favor of signing petitions or writing letters or that sort of thing, because I think they are pretty pointless. If we have learned anything the past few years, it is that the powers that be are going to DWTFTW regardless what you or I think.
Having said that, I think this is exactly right. If, upon learning that pictures detailing torture and abuse at the hands of our soldiers will be released, your first reaction is that releasing the pictures is worse than the crimes committed in the pictures, as far as I am concerned you are not fit to be speaking in public and I can’t for the life of me figure out why any reputable news organization would be paying to hear your rancid thoughts. Then again, we are talking about CNN, which also has a daily line-up including Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, whose main claim to fame is publishing a book filled from cover to cover with fantasies that made Bill Kristol’s nether regions turgid.
I understand that having that opinion immediately means that I am on par with the dirty fucking hippies and, as such, am not a serious person. So be it.
Svensker
You had to go and say that, didn’t you? Yup, happy Mother’s Day, Svensker. Now go think about Bill Kristol’s turgidity. Yeah, that does it.
DougJ
Can we get them to stop having her husband on too? Let’s be bipartisan about this.
El Cid
Matalin’s right. The Founding Fathers would never have respected anyone who thought that the citizen should know what their government had done so as to make judgments on how to run their fledgling democratic republic. The Founding Fathers were all about ‘shut up and let your god-damn betters do what they need to do in secret without all your damn nosy caterwaulin.’
me
And after the long “torture, no worries” tirade from Matalin, they didn’t even give Rosen (they can’t find anyone better then the ex head of the RIAA to speak on behalf of the Democrats?) a chance to reply. They ended the segment right there.
asiangrrlMN
Great. I have to imagine Kristol’s turgid nether regions. Thanks, John.
@DougJ: Yes, please. Carville is beyond creepy and irritating. They both should just go and shout at each other instead of at the rest of us.
As for Matalin’s comments, they’re similar to W. when he forbade pictures of the coffins of our returning dead soldiers. It would be disrespectful to the families was his claim.
In actuality, it would show Americans what is really going on, and I don’t think people would be as comfortable with mindlessly cheerleading for the wars. In the same way, if the pictures of the torture are disseminated, all but the most amoral of us will be repulsed. It’s really hard to defend against graphic evidence of what was done in our name.
El Cid, right on!
tc125231
You are right on target. I just sent mine.
Thanks for the heads up.
srv
Bacevich vs. Nagl on the Newshour last week.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/jan-june09/waranalysis_05-06.html
aimai
I think CArville and Matalin are the apotheosis of everything that is wrong with Washington and with American Politics. I quite see that two centrists could fall in love, get married, and settle down even across party and philosophical lines.
But Matalin is not a centrist. She is a far right hack who has not only supported but cheered on the most vile, unregenerate, disgusting abuses of power in this century. Carville, theoretically, was politically and philosophically opposed to those abuses and personally represents himself as opposed to torture.
To recap John’s famous question–what’s the midpoint between “I’d like to eat italian tonight” and “car tire rims and ground glass” (or whatever!). Ok, some wag said “Olive Garden” but the fact of the matter is there is no midpoint. Either Carville agrees with her, in which case he’s lying when he represents himself as a democrat on TV, or he disagrees with her, in which case he should stay home arguing with her until he can get his point across or divorce her because she’s a sick motherfucker.
Or, we might argue, perhaps it is she who is lying in state–that is she’s lying publicly about what she supports merely in order to make and keep a career catering to sociopaths. Either way no respectable network should consider hiring either or both of them.
aimai
J
Aimai,
I think that, hard as it is to fathom, he (Carville) may disagree with Matalin, but just thinks it’s not that big a deal. And if not Carville himself, then others like him. I bet that in the “mainstream” or the “center” being weakly or somewhat against torture belongs to the range of positions that serious people are permitted to take, as long as one views it as a very difficult issue, accepts all the excuses that have been offered for those who did it and, above all, is firmly of the opinion that the gravity of the offense is as nothing compared with that of those who want to see the matter investigated and justice done.
satch
Aimai: I guess you’ve never seen the classic Wile E. Coyote episode which had him going up against a sheep dog who was guarding the flock. They were doing their usual thing…setting traps for each other, dropping anvils on each other…when the sheepdog grabbed Wile E by the throat and was punching him. At that point, the 5:00 whistle blows, and they break it up, grab their lunch pails, punch the clock, and on their way out, greet the sheepdog and coyote coming in for the next shift. That’s Carville and Matalin: just puttin’ in a days work.
kmeyer57
Turgid? Are you sure that’s the right word?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
I know, I know. And that whole Declaration of Independence thing was a nutty idea, too, if you ask me.
But anyway, it seems to be that the lesson we can learn from the last few years is that you get the government you vote for.
If you vote for potatoheads who are Unitary Executive thinkers and put them in charge of the latest in a series of governments that saw to running away from Consititutional checks on executive power, you might end up with the Cheney administration.
Or, you could go the other way, and end up with the Obama administration, and have some chance of reversing the trend.
As for why CNN would pay for those rancid thoughts, they still think that ratings are tied to churn. Without tension and churn, people might find something else to do on Sunday mornings besides watch television.
M. Bouffant
Take a good look at pictures of Carville & Matalin.
I’ve never seen two people w/ tinier eyes. Were their children born w/o eyes, like cave-dwelling fish?
M. Bouffant
you get the government you vote for.
2000 A. D.: “Oh yeah?”
aimai
Satch,
Actually, that is my favorite cartoon of all time. Is it really Wile E Coyote or in the Bugs Bunny Oeuvre? Because they do a lot of talking as the clock in and out of the struggle.
But be that as it may that was my point about going far, far, beyond centrist. I mean how many people does Cheney have to shoot in the face before someone in his inner circle resigns? John Edwards whole campaign staff (supposedly) claims they will resign en masse over a hidden sex scandal and Mary Matalin, married to a top Democratic Operative, doesn’t care enough about her country *or her party* to step away from the pump brained, morally bankrupt, Cheney team?
I mean, my god, I wouldn’t leave my puppy alone with that woman, let alone my children. In polite society maybe we hire other people to torture our enemies–but we don’t work for the head executioner without getting a little blood spattered on us.
I guess what I really think is that its one thing to have hired analytic people who professionally pretend not to care. Its disgusting to have hired analytic people who professional pretend to care–pretend to believe that there is such a big difference between the parties that its war to the knife, who then go home together and split their salaries and eat their dinners in perfect comity. If Matalin believes what *she* professes to believe,and Carville believes what *he* professes to believe they really shouldn’t be married, each in his own way, to their respective antichrist. And if they don’t really believe it, if they are just mouthing this shit on alternate sundays and could each just as well argue for the other ones point of view? Well, that’s just disgusting.
I know. Its show biz. I don’t care how vile Matalin is, I don’t really expect anything better. But I’m damned if I see why Carville gets to suck up the pittance allotted to representing “democratic” views when he clearly doesn’t really believe democratic politics and policies matter.
aimai
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@M. Bouffant:
Yeah.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Mary Matalin – Torture Whore.
Svensker
@M. Bouffant:
Ha ha ha.
oh really
That would be true, except it isn’t. There are many instances where those kinds of actions have accomplished desirable ends. Are they magic? Of course not. Do they always or even usually work? Probably not, but rest assured if more people wrote letters or signed petitions (and I mean a lot more) they might really shake things up.
Since writing letters and signing petitions takes almost no effort, they are worth trying since there are few other direct actions available to average citizens regarding many issues.
Harry Reid needs to be replaced as Majority Leader. Senators are never going to act on that need, because they don’t think their constituents care (and they’re probably right). But I can virtually guarantee that if every Democratic senator received a quarter of a million emails or letters* demanding Reid’s removal, Reid would be in huge trouble.
If CNN received a hundred thousand emails/letters calling for Matalin to be canned, I’ve got to think she’d be gone.
Some years ago, something like ten to fifteen thousand letters to the USDA caused them to not gut the meaning of “organic.” That is a tiny number, but it altered USDA policy. I’d guess the USDA took into account the fact that most Americans are lazy and/or apathetic, but if 10 or 15 thousand people cared enough to write then it was likely that a huge number (who couldn’t be bothered to write, because is does no good) probably did not want the USDA to redefine organic in the way it was considering.
Naturally, it’s easier to do nothing and then judge such actions to be failures, because not enough people act.
There’s really no point in voting either. After all, it almost never accomplishes what we hope it will.
*Or a number adjusted appropriately for state populations.
Doug
“releasing the pictures is worse than the crimes committed in the pictures”
I’ve read this before, and no it does not sound any better in the original German.
(And somewhat off-topic, how about the big O telling the WH Correspondents’ Dinner that Cheney’s book is going to be called How To Shoot Friends and Interrogate People? I think that’s better pwnage than mocking Michael Steele with “Wassup?” but I am willing to enter debate on the matter.)