We’re the reality-based community, so it’s time to get real…there will be no filibuster. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. I know it, you know it, Bush, Cheney and every psychopathic rightwinger who is salivating at the thought of legalized torture knows it.
But I think I have a solution…and it came to me while reading Bill Clinton’s smackdown of Chris Wallace:
In 2002 our party supported them in undertaking weapon inspections in Iraq and were 100% behind them in Afghanistan and they didn’t have any way to make us look like we didn’t care about terror. And so they decided they would…the homeland security bill that they opposed and they put some pill in it that we wouldn’t pass like taking the job rights away from 170,000 people and then say that we were weak on terror if we weren’t for it…
Think about it. A “poison pill” amendment to Bush’s new torture law…
If a Senator were to attach an amendment to the Pro-Torture Bill that said something along the lines of:
Respectfully accepting President Bush’s word when he said that all laws regarding torture have been followed:
I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it — and I will not authorize it.
In the interest of assuring the American people and the world that the United States of America has not engaged in illegal torture, an amendment is attached that will allow the full prosecution of anyone who is found to have engaged in cruel or inhuman treatment or torture before the passage of this Bill.
You get the idea…attach an amendment that will not give anyone retro-active legal cover. Because after all, Bush said he hadn’t ever authorized it.
The Democrats could accomplish three things with a poison pill amendment:
1.) Really, really piss off all Republicans,
2.) Show that they are “tough on terror,” and,
3.) Show that they aren’t going to get screwed again.
How could the administration or the GOP argue with such an amendment? They haven’t tortured anyone, right? Bush hasn’t authorized any torture, right?