“‘Frankly, I was offended by it,’ Cheney said in the videotaped interview. ‘For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously.'” Awww. Our thin-skinned veep’s feelings are hurt by an Amnesty International report claiming all is not kosher at Guantanamo Bay. Well, as a colleague of mine noted, perhaps someone should fill Dick in on Abu Ghraib (or, for that matter, countless other episodes in US history, from chattel slavery to the Trail of Tears.) For his part, the president of Amnesty responded: “It doesn’t matter whether he takes Amnesty International seriously. He doesn’t take torture seriously; he doesn’t take the Geneva Convention seriously; he doesn’t take due process rights seriously; and he doesn’t take international law seriously. And that is more important than whether he takes Amnesty International seriously.” Touche. (FWIW, the WP cried foul as well.)
Category: The Dubya Era
DeLay meets Derrida.
“Today’s conservative activists have become the new postmodernists. They shift attention away from the truth or falsity of specific facts and allegations — and move the discussion to the motives of the journalists and media organizations putting them forward.” By way of Crooked Timber, E.J. Dionne calls out the po-mo bent of today’s GOP.
Terrible Lie(s).
Exemplifying MTV’s consistent downward spiral since the heady days of Rock the Vote and Randee of the Redwoods (yes, I just dated myself), Nine Inch Nails drops out of a performance at the Movie Awards after the network got nervous about (gasp!) a “partisan political statement.” “‘We were set to perform “The Hand That Feeds” with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me,’ Nine Inch Nails’ leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band’s Web site.” Hmmm. Well, maybe the Breakfast Club will pick up Reznor’s standard… (Last link via Freakgirl.)
GWOT and bothered.
The Bush administration announces they’re going to reevaluate their anti-terrorism strategies. To put it mildly, “[t]he policy review marks what many experts regard as a belated shift.” Well, perhaps a good place to start would be looking harder at who we sell weapons to, so we as advocates of freedom around the world aren’t forced to explain away situations like the recent massacre in Uzbekistan. (2nd link via Looka.)
Who’s on Frist.
“Frist had only eight years of Senate experience when he succeeded Lott, and some colleagues felt he was more Bush’s choice than the GOP caucus’s. He was bound to need more White House help than did up-through-the-ranks predecessors such as Lott and Dole, they said, but sometimes Bush seemed to dump tough problems at his door and walk away.” As right-wing Republicans hammers the GOP moderates who crafted the nuclear compromise, Charles Babington examines the political import of Catkiller’s lousy week. Meanwhile, Frist’s possible primary nemesis John McCain calls for a compromise on Bolton, in which the White House would release the info they’ve been holding in exchange for a vote.
Master of Pork.
So much for the Republican Revolution…The WP delves into Speaker Dennis Hastert’s life high on the hog. “[U]nlike a long line of big spenders before him — including such masters of pork-barrel politics as the late speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) — Hastert is a conservative Republican who favors smaller government and leaner domestic budgets. He has led the fight to enforce tough White House spending limits for the highway program and domestic spending bills, sometimes over the objections of GOP committee chairmen.” Do as he says, not as he does.
Oh, you mean that Koran.
While the toilet incident that got Newsweek in trouble was emphatically denied, the Pentagon announces — after the release of FBI interviews obtained by the ACLU — that there have in fact been incidents of Koran mistreatment at Gitmo. (Surprise, surprise.) While “the interviews underscore that U.S. government officials were made aware of allegations of prisoner abuse and Koran mistreatment within months of the opening of Guantanamo Bay in early 2002“, just last week “Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said the Defense Department had received no credible claims of such abuse.”
“Now” v. Then.
Salon‘s Eric Boehlert explains how Kenneth Tomlinson, the Dubya crony trying to turn PBS into FOX News, is probably not the best judge of fairness or balance going — He and his hand-picked ombudsman both worked for Fulton Lewis Jr., the rabidly anti-FDR and pro-McCarthy Rush Limbaugh of his day.
Bolton on the verge.
Still waiting in vain for the White House to turn over some crucial intelligence documents regarding Dubya’s pick, the Dems succeed in holding off the Bolton vote until next week. The GOP moderates still don’t seem to be joining Voinovich in apostasy, though, so it looks like Bolton will soon be representing us before the world. For shame.
Return of the Spoils.
“The campaign to prevent the Senate filibuster of the president’s judicial nominations was simply the latest and most public example of similar transformations in Congress and the executive branch stretching back a decade. The common theme is to consolidate influence in a small circle of Republicans and to marginalize dissenting voices that would try to impede a conservative agenda.” The WP offers a big-picture view of recent GOP attempts to centralize power in the executive.