Dick Cheney has a special fondness for cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment. While his office staff is embroiled in a Watergate-size scandal, Cheney still found time last week to hold several closed-door meetings, where he pleaded to be allowed to continue torturing prisoners.
The vice president made his comments at a regular weekly private meeting of Senate Republican senators, according to several lawmakers who attended. Cheney often attends the meetings, a chance for the rank-and-file to discuss legislative strategy, but he rarely speaks.
In this case, the room was cleared of aides before the vice president began his remarks, said by one senator to include a reference to classified material…
Cheney also has met several times with McCain, including one session that CIA Director Porter Goss attended in a secure room in the Capitol.
However, McCain has remained unmoved. In fact, he appears to have been emboldened:
McCain has now pledged to to add the torture ban to all major Senate legislation until it becomes law.
Fareed Zakaria, states the obvious in a Newsweek column entitled, Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer:
It must be intimidating to have the Vice-President and the Director of Central Intelligence take you into a private, secured room, and try to pitch an exemption to a ban on cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment. It must be somewhat akin to facing down pure evil. But John McCain has faced pure evil before. John McCain has been tortured and beaten, and subjected to cruel conditions, and dehumanizing isolation.
I don’t go out of my way to praise Republicans too often. I will never understand why McCain forgave Bush for slandering his wife and child in South Carolina. But I have nothing but the utmost praise and admiration for the courageous stand McCain is taking now. He wins my Profile in Courage Award.
I suppose I am not a committed person here on this one, as you are.
McCain is going to run for presnit in 08. He needs to do this thing to keep what little credibility he has. All I can envision is this man hugging w on AF1 and his sharing of BD cake during Katrina. I say this, if he really has any love of country in his fortitude, he and others must shun evil darth on this one or else, all the republican party is doomed.
As far as I am concerned, and I am one who does not like McCain, they are all republican! ’nuff said.
A good act is a good act is a good act. It doesn’t matter to me whether is starts from the dems or the reps and it doesn’t matter what the motivation is because I can’t really tell what motivates them. If McCain changes his stripes and becomes Darth McCain I will oppose him.. but if he consistently does good i will support him.
Now, he has done both good and bad, but taken all in all he is NO where as bad as the Republican Extremists.
<<<<Now, he has done both good and bad, but taken all in all he is NO where as bad as the Republican Extremists.>>>>>>>>
I agree with you on that one; however, he has yet to prove his worthiness. I have yet to see that action of which he proclaims. Till then, I will not hold my breathe.
But i like to add the Dems to that as well. Lately, they’ve perfected the art of sitting on their hands. Reid is doing some good stuff though so I’m a bit more hopefull
I hear ya, but I thought the topic here was McCain, tho.
It is. 😛 sorry for the transgression
(although i sorta thought my agreeing with your statement was a BIT on topic)
:o)..no problem
He is Darth McCain. The aberration in this case serves as a great issue for him to ‘differentiate’ himself from the Thugs-in-charge. I’m not sure that I even believe McCain truly cares.
If I were a tin-foil hatter, I would believe it is a Rovian-type attempt to provide Darth McCain with just enough cover to keep the polls close enough in 2008 so that he can ‘win’ the election for the DarkSide.
NOW, we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the gift is coming from a horse-thief, either.
bit. He has hugged Bush too many times now for the cameras though (verp), so I find myself in complete compliance with you Brenda on this.
You know, Tracy, if someone trashed my wife and family the way bush trashed McCain’s, I would forever not care what happened to him. I certainly would not kiss his butt for things. BTW, thanks.
McCain will, hopefully, never be president. However, he has serious expectations that he may be “chosen” to replace Cheney as VP, thus cementing his legend (in his own mind) as a major player.
I lost all respect for McC after the 2000 primaries and his subsequent behavior since. His disgustingly vulgar pandering during the 04 elections did nothing to assuage my contempt.
No question, he has admirable credentials and a strong position from which to oppose these abuses. But, his current “courageous stand” against torture aside; it’s to bad he didn’t feel that way when he voted to confirm Gonzales as AG and Rice as SoS. I was for it before I was against it..? Flippity-floppity.
The man is a chameleon (lizard) and is being put forward as an acceptable substitute for Cheney in an attempt to reposition the Repugs as a still viable alternative to the moderates and to distance them from the lunatic fringe on the extreme right in the midterm elections and further, in 08, when Jeb will be trotted out to represent the ‘sane’ side of the party…BAH!
This does not pass the smell test, and smacks of political maneuvering ala Bush 41 and James Baker III. The Bush Family Business is in peril and everyone else is expendable…ergo, McCain is, once again being played the fool.
Profile in Courage…I think not. Political Opportunism in Action…most certainly.
Pardon my cynicism, it comes from paying attention.
Peace
dada, very well put. I wished I could have put it like that. I was really trying hard to keep my anger at him down to a minimum. McCain was not the brave old soul in VN as he and others would have us believe either….or so it is I hear from those there would say. I do not have the facts except to the testimony of others. They call that hearsay I believe…but all in all seeing the kind of man he is now, I would not put it past him in the least to do what they say he did.
Do not EVER forget that Jeb
Jeb will be trotted out to represent the ‘sane’ side of the party
was one of the original signatories to the document of the Project for the New American Century, not Dim Son. He is every bit as evil as Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al.
Ever since he picked up Mark McKinnon, McCain has really been making publicly nice with Rove, including his saying today that Rove shouldn’t have to gice up his security clearance.
Seems to me that the battle lines that are forming are between Cheney, Card and Rove… with McCain and Kristol in the Rove camp, Sens. Roberts and Frist in the Cheney camp, and McLellan in the Card camp.
DO NOT TRUST MCCAIN… He is totally pro-war… and he is not a friend to progressives.
I am sorry, but I cannot join you in admiring McCain for his “forgiveness” for what was done to his wife and child during the 2000 election campaign. I consider it one particularly terrible step in a long line of caving in to policies that Bush has put forward.
McCain seems intent on staying in the public eye as much as confronting Bush on the more egregious problems of his policies – even from a stark Republican viewpoint. At present, perhaps McCain’s endorsement and public appearances with Bush give him more ability to push the administration on the torture issue. If that is his purpose, fine. I guess. But he has endorsed a huge number of terrible policies in the process of supporting this president and his minions.
Certainly McCain suffered greatly for his identity as an American and as the scion of a U.S. military leader. That is a lot. However, I cannot, on balance, see him as particularly courageous in his current and recent actions. Were the collective members of the Democratic party in the House and Senate acting with even a modicum of courage, McCain’s actions would not look so striking.
can kiss my ass. There was a time that I admired him but those days are long gone. I hope he does what he said as far as the ammendment on torture but I won’t hold my breath. As you all have said here, when he climbed into bed with the Bush regime he lost any confidence I had in him. He is positioning himself for a run for the next pretzel nitwit. No kudos from this ol’ gal.
McCain is a shit to the extent that he does not deserve praise even for standing up here. He voted for Gonzales and supported him enthusiastically–a move that helps torture become official policy quite effectively.
Oh, now he wants to oppose torture? Oh. Wow, good for him.
I saw him Sunday on Fox, his favorite place. He said we should back off Cheney, and that even leaking a CIA operative’s name should not affect his security clearance, although there are numerous examples of trivial intellgence-related mistakes having graver consequences.
There’s no principle here. John McCain has found a new pet issue to work for his own political interests. He is not a man of principle, and while I have nuanced views of many politicians, McCain will not be receiving one.
Does any of this address outsourced torture or would that continue as it’s been? There was credible evidence that private contractor security and intelligence employees were involved in the chain of command and torture in Abu Gharib. Everyone got a pass but the low level troops and America was proud of the justice done. First thing Bush did was give them all immunity before the invasion. This isn’t new either with Dyncorp having serious problems a few years back.
Is Bush just trying to keep the ‘badass’ image to show the world? If he had any sense he would sign an EO as quick as he could and look the other way while it continued. Of course, that’s not my solution but it would work easily for him. I wonder why he doesn’t?
of wording, what shall be codified and where, which politicians will make which rousing speeches to delight the hearts and loosen the purse strings of their devotees.
I would caution against illusions that US policies and their implementation will be affected, though there may be an increase in privatization, not only for domestic public relations purposes, but to cut costs.
Official government torturers, like their support staff and general gunmen, as of this writing can still incur substantial health care costs as they become even partially unusable, whereas disposition and any possible benefit accorded to damaged privately contracted assets is the responsibility of the hiring company.
Washington is more than aware of the increasing costs presented by the traditional “armed forces” expendables, however until the US voting class is successfully weaned from the obsolete notion that crusades are intended to provide a benefit to disposable assets, it is unlikely that the “veteran benefits” provisions can be completely phased out in a timely manner with respect to US “goals and objectives.”
Lockheed-Martin will be supplying one of the new groups of “interrogators.”
Any hope of future justice has been shattered. Funny you should mention L-M for that work consideration. That’s where J Comey bolted off to about the time Fitzgerald’s gj was due to expire.
I’ve spent the last 2 days reading first hand accounts of torture interrogations and uncharged incarceration, mostly in Syria. The ones who sent the innocent victims should have to experience it too.
level of the brutes.
Perpetuating atrocity does nothing to stop it, and will destroy you.
I wish to see them all held in clean, habitable cells, treated humanely both before and after their fair and open trials with full rights to counsel and defense, and if convicted, sentenced to perform useful work under supervision so that they can do no further harm, and all proceeds save that needed to maintain them in humane, clean and nutritious conditions be given to their victims and their families.
Lest I be accused of self-righteousness, I am not perfect in this regard.
I would like to see Ariel Sharon’s nutritious diet consist of green leafy vegetables, whole grains and legumes, and all the rest shall have a turn sharing that clean habitable cell with him.
Oh yeah, go ahead and make me feel like the bad guy here. You’re right.
…trouble is, doing the right thing doesn’t work with these fellas. If it doesn’t take them out, they only get stronger and it’s a stronger level of evil they’re then capable of.
The attitude that nothing less than a Supreme Court confirmed guilty verdict isn’t actually a crime (for them) allows the empire to build.
But, you’re right. They wouldn’t understand. Maybe they would actually enjoy it in some odd way.
And I do not believe for a minute that you would stand for doing harm to the Torturer General himself, or any of his henchmen.
There may be an instinctive, knee-jerk urge in some people to go all Charles Kingsley and assume the role of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, but when they do not act on it, they improve themselves, improve the world, and improve their species.
And if you should happen to suppress a smile as you say, “It’s kale and fava beans tonight, Mr. Sharon,” well that doesn’t make you a bad guy either.
I bet you know who wrote that 😉
For some the higher path is found with eyes closed, but a fool like me must look for it constantly. I appreciate some of those translations.
The friends I ran with in younger days were on the edge but never a threat to anyone. In our adventures we would laugh and joke that they would put us under the jail, if caught.
That’s where Arar was kept…under the jail, in a very small hole without light, for about 10 months.
McCain might just be the one left standing when it all comes tumbling down for the Repugs.
He’s one of the main ones taking them down. It’s just a little tough to see because the media dpwnplays it and there are several layers to get to the top.
He is one running the investigation into Abramoff’s dealings with the Indian Gaming Commission and I swear they keep moist towelettes on the table to try to keep the slime off of their hands.
He was questioning Abramoff’s tax advisor on some emails. One was asking for money to run a sniper workshop again because the first one was so successfull. He asked that lady 5-6 times if this was right, did she not notice anything wrong and was it a normal request.
He just shook his head in disbelief.
Thanks but I believe that he is perceived to stand somewhat apart. That is what my statement was addressed to, perception being reality for many people.
I see it now. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Are you saying that as one might be looking from a GOP or Conservative perspective? I’m not sure amany of them liked him very much.
I’m just saying that if Delay, First and others come crashing down, McCain might be one of a few well known Republicans to come away relatively unscathed. Given how he is generally perceived amongst the electorate and his name recognition he will hard to ignore. Even if the far right side of the party is not thrilled with him they will be forced to recognize him as a strong contender. And the obviously want to keep a Republican in the White House, even one such as this.
Good observation and probably accurate as well.
I couldn’t even read through the comments– It takes no courage to be a sycophant-It takes courage to stand up and call the a-holes on their BS.
McCain gets no respect from me.
Yes he was a ‘victim’of the smear machine-and due to that- He had no testicular fortitude left,and he still has none.That disgusting pic with him hugging dumya– what a fu**ing tool.
He is just angling to be Cheney’s replacement.
Bah.
I commend McCain for opposing torture, I’m sure it is a real conviction, but I stop short of calling it a profile in courage. It’s actually a very adept political move, with no real downside. The Bushies are too weak to enforce reprisals, and McCain is positioning himself as the strongest contender for the Repub presidential nomination. Nobody closely associated with Bush is going to get it, and McCain is the best known name the Repubs have. Moreover, he would likely be a strong candidate against any of the Dems mentioned as possible candidates.