I don’t know if you watched Hardball tonight or not. Chris Matthews had a segment on torture with Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post and former U.S. Representative Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) as his guests. Matthews asked Ford Jr. about the recent attempts to shield Bush administration officials from scrutiny by attacking Speaker Pelosi:
MATTHEWS: How well does this affect, or does it affect, (Pelosi’s) status, in this big debate with the Republicans over torture? The party base of the Democratic Party, and you know, the people who go to the whip meetings, the rah-rah guys and women, they don’t like this torture thing. Do they feel that she’s been touched by it, do you think?
Notice, first of all, the detached manner in which Matthews talks about torture. There is no suggestion that he personally objects to it. Only ‘rah-rah’ members of the political left object to torture. But, let’s look at Ford’s response.
FORD: Two things. One, she’s often been picked on as Speaker. She’s been accustomed throughout her political career of having to overcome odds. This is another challenge she will face.
See? I am a good Democrat who defends the honor and toughness of Speaker Pelosi against these attacks. He continued…
FORD: Two, it’s no surprise, Nancy Pelosi opposed the Iraq War, from the outset. I happen to have disagreed with the Speaker in that vote. She has been outspoken in her concern and outcry about the techniques used by the previous Administration to quell Al Qaeda’s growth.
I gotta take the needle off the record here. Ford just said that he disagreed with Pelosi about launching the Iraq War which is objectively true. Is he mentioning it here to make himself look tough or to acknowledge that he was a fucking idiot? I ask, you decide. But, far worse, he says that we tortured people ‘to quell Al Qaeda’s growth.’ Is that why we did it? Not to disarm a ticking timebomb (more on that later), not to exact some revenge? We just did it to quell their growth? Because, if that is why we did it, it didn’t work out. Torture turned out to be al-Qaeda’s biggest recruitment bonanza, as has been well documented and testified to. More Ford…
FORD: These questions here are as much semantics as anything. I think the larger question from our party, however, is, is this really a debate we want to have?
Now Ford lays his cards on the table. Why is he here tonight to talk about torture as an ‘unelected Democrat’? Because he wants to defend torture and cut off momentum for investigations. Need proof? Read on…
FORD: I think if you ask the majority of Americans if they were opposed to the waterboarding of some of these high-level terrorists, or those who orchestrated terrorist attacks, I think you’d be hard pressed to find many Americans, many Democrats even, who would be that outraged by it. So I hope we are able to move on from the conversation, and get on to the business that Leon Panetta’s on, which is trying to fix our intelligence system to ensure that we’re getting the best data, and that we don’t get into the problem that we ran into in Iraq from the outset, which was going into Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, when they had no weapons of mass destruction […]
Actually, Chris Cillizza’s Washington Post recently polled this issue and found that 49% of Americans oppose torture all the time, no matter the victim. That is 1% more Americans than are willing to make exceptions. Is Harold Ford saying we’d be hard pressed to find 49% of the American people? But that is just a distraction. You don’t poll the Bill of Rights and you don’t poll Human Rights treaties. The reason we enshrine those rights into permanent law is because they are so tempting to violate in trying times. I think it’s cute, though, that Ford brings up the missing WMD to try to mimic what a real Democrat might say.
Matthews’ follow up question was a doozy:
MATTHEWS: You know it’s interesting, Congressman, it seems like Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are caught trying to do two things at the same time. You see her standing there in front of a million flags, she’s clearly trying to look as nationalistic as the Republicans. I mean patriotic, we’re all patriotic. Nationalistic, in other words, tough, anything that goes to defend the country, we’re going to be as tough as nails, opposing any enemy of any kind, we are as tough as the Republicans are…
Is that really all the American Flag means to Chris Matthews? You display it, not out of any genuine feeling, but only to beat off Republican attacks against your nationalism and patriotism and toughness? Seriously? That’s sad.
MATTHEWS: …At the same time, she’s seeming to express sympathy for prisoners, bad guys. Is that a problem? You seem to be suggesting it is. You can’t be both tough as nails, and at the same time look like you worry about human rights violations. Is that a problem or not?
A purely political question, no? Ford responds with a baffling non-sequitur…
FORD: No. I think that Eric Holder said this best when referring to the Ted Stevens case, and the aftermath, when he stepped foward and said the Justice Department of the United States would not move forward. He said the most important thing at the Justice Department is not winning, it’s justice.
Attorney General Holder was talking about having his prosecutors live up to the highest standards, not giving mercy to Republican lawmakers because their crimes are understandable. My God!!
FORD:…So in this sense I think having the conversation about what happened and about whether or not, at Guantanamo Bay, and I’m not as outraged as some are about it, because as much as I think some of those techniques were enhanced and might have risen to a level of torture, you have to remember when this was occurring. This was 2002, 2003. The country was in a different place and a different space.
In 2005, CBS News reported that 108 detainees had already died in our custody in Iraq and Afghanistan (not Guantanamo) and Ford wants to write this all off as our ‘place’ at the time? He’s not outraged? Okay.
FORD:…And if you were to say to me as an American, put aside my partisanship, that we have an opportunity to gain information that would prevent the destruction of an American city, to prevent killings in American cities, and we have to use certain techniques, I’m one of those Americans who would have voted a certain way, Chris, in that poll, and said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.
Here, Matthews justifiably calls bullshit, but not for the right reason.
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. You are veering into Cheney country.
FORD: No, Chris, no no no-
MATTHEWS: The destruction of an American city? What evidence did you ever have, that the enemy had a nuclear weapon that could blow up an American city? Where’d that, that’s Cheney talk. That’s what he uses to justify torture. We’ve no evidence that any enemy of ours had a nuclear weapon!
A good point, but he misses that Ford just said we can torture people if we’re scared for some reason. We can’t. It’s the law.
FORD: No, no, I said, if thousands of people in America- don’t get me wrong, we can play the names associating me with one person or another. I’m just saying in 2002-
MATTHEWS: No, but you’re saying, blow up an American city. What are you talking about?
He’s blowing smoke up your ass, Chris.
FORD: In 2002, 2003, remember where America was. You remember our mindset…
I remember your mindset.
FORD:…If the American people were told that there were those held at Guantanamo Bay that might have had information, after our country was attacked on 9/11, I’m certain people would have wanted those to take certain steps. I’m not arguing at all that there was evidence that that would have happened…
If you lied to the American people about the nature of the people at Guantanamo, they’d probably believe you? Is that your argument?
FORD: Yet, Cheney has said that he hopes all the data is released and maybe at some point we’ll have an opportunity to see that. The larger issue here I think is, where do we go from here.
I’m taking it that we go anywhere but to investigating claims made by Bush and Cheney.
FORD:…And the new director, Mr. Panetta has made it clear that finding, seeking out and finding the best intelligence has to be the goal of the CIA, and when we make a make a mistake, to admit we made a mistake. George Bush and Dick Cheney never could admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and as a result we pursued a path in Iraq that has weakened us in many ways in the Middle East and made it harder for this new President.
And Ford brings it full circle, bringing up those missing WMD again, like a good Democrat. Thankfully, Chris Matthews told him off.
MATTHEWS: OK. Those guys used a nuclear threat. They said they had a weapon, they had a vehicle to deliver it here to America, to get us to go to war with Iraq, they used that again this weekend, the Vice President, to say it was an excuse, a reason for torture. I don’t like references made to a strategic threat to the United States, a nuclear threat. We know what happened on 9/11, everybody knows. But the way they sold that war, the way they’re still selling that war, the way they’re selling torture, is that to say we faced a Holocaust in America, a city blown up. That’s why I don’t like any reference to Cheney talk, because that’s what it is.
Is there any way that we can make it clear to the press that we do not consider Harold Ford Jr. to be a Democrat in any sense of the word and that we emphatically do not want him going on cable news representing the Democratic side of any debate? Ideas?
[Full, uninterrupted transcript below the fold, courtesy of D-Day]
MATTHEWS: How well does this affect, or does it affect, (Pelosi’s) status, in this big debate with the Republicans over torture? The party base of the Democratic Party, and you know, the people who go to the whip meetings, the rah-rah guys and women, they don’t like this torture thing. Do they feel that she’s been touched by it, do you think?
FORD: Two things. One, she’s often been picked on as Speaker. She’s been accustomed throughout her political career of having to overcome odds. This is another challenge she will face. Two, it’s no surprise, Nancy Pelosi opposed the Iraq War, from the outset. I happen to have disagreed with the Speaker in that vote. She has been outspoken in her concern and outcry about the techniques used by the previous Administration to quell Al Qaeda’s growth. These questions here are as much semantics as anything. I think the larger question from our party, however, is, is this really a debate we want to have? I think if you ask the majority of Americans if they were opposed to the waterboarding of some of these high-level terrorists, or those who orchestrated terrorist attacks, I think you’d be hard pressed to find many Americans, many Democrats even, who would be that outraged by it. So I hope we are able to move on from the conversation, and get on to the business that Leon Panetta’s on, which is trying to fix our intelligence system to ensure that we’re getting the best data, and that we don’t get into the problem that we ran into in Iraq from the outset, which was going into Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, when they had no weapons of mass destruction […]
MATTHEWS: You know it’s interesting, Congressman, it seems like Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are caught trying to do two things at the same time. You see her standing there in front of a million flags, she’s clearly trying to look as nationalistic as the Republicans. I mean patriotic, we’re all patriotic. Nationalistic, in other words, tough, anything that goes to defend the country, we’re going to be as tough as nails, opposing any enemy of any kind, we are as tough as the Republicans are. At the same time, she’s seeming to express sympathy for prisoners, bad guys. Is that a problem? You seem to be suggesting it is. You can’t be both tough as nails, and at the same time look like you worry about human rights violations. Is that a problem or not?
FORD: No. I think that Eric Holder said this best when referring to the Ted Stevens case, and the aftermath, when he stepped foward and said the Justice Department of the United States would not move forward. He said the most important thing at the Justice Department is not winning, it’s justice. So in this sense I think having the conversation about what happened and about whether or not, at Guantanamo Bay, and I’m not as outraged as some are about it, because as much as I think some of those techniques were enhanced and might have risen to a level of torture, you have to remember when this was occurring. This was 2002, 2003. The country was in a different place and a different space. And if you were to say to me as an American, put aside my partisanship, that we have an opportunity to gain information that would prevent the destruction of an American city, to prevent killings in American cities, and we have to use certain techniques, I’m one of those Americans who would have voted a certain way, Chris, in that poll, and said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. You are veering into Cheney country.
FORD: No, Chris, no no no-
MATTHEWS: The destruction of an American city? What evidence did you ever have, that the enemy had a nuclear weapon that could blow up an American city? Where’d that, that’s Cheney talk. That’s what he uses to justify torture. We’ve no evidence that any enemy of ours had a nuclear weapon!
FORD: No, no, I said, if thousands of people in America- don’t get me wrong, we can play the names associating me with one person or another. I’m just saying in 2002-
MATTHEWS: No, but you’re saying, blow up an American city. What are you talking about?
FORD: In 2002, 2003, remember where America was. You remember our mindset. If the American people were told that there were those held at Guantanamo Bay that might have had information, after our country was attacked on 9/11, I’m certain people would have wanted those to take certain steps. I’m not arguing at all that there was evidence that that would have happened. Yet, Cheney has said that he hopes all the data is released and maybe at some point we’ll have an opportunity to see that. The larger issue here I think is, where do we go from here. Ang the new director, Mr. Panetta has made it clear that finding, seeking out and finding the best intelligence has to be the goal of the CIA, and when we make a make a mistake, to admit we made a mistake. George Bush and Dick Cheney never could admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and as a result we pursued a path in Iraq that has weakened us in many ways in the Middle East and made it harder for this new President.
MATTHEWS: OK. Those guys used a nuclear threat. They said they had a weapon, they had a vehicle to deliver it here to America, to get us to go to war with Iraq, they used that again this weekend, the Vice President, to say it was an excuse, a reason for torture. I don’t like references made to a strategic threat to the United States, a nuclear threat. We know what happened on 9/11, everybody knows. But the way they sold that war, the way they’re still selling that war, the way they’re selling torture, is that to say we faced a Holocaust in America, a city blown up. That’s why I don’t like any reference to Cheney talk, because that’s what it is.
