Star Tribune hits another editorial homer: Durbin's message

[Minnesota_Lib]

Editorial: Durbin's message/U.S. must end prisoner abuse
June 21, 2005

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., set off a firestorm last week when he compared U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to practices employed by Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot and their ilk. His remarks were condemned by the White House, the Pentagon, the Christian Coalition, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Newt Gingrich (who called for his censure by the Senate) and by the entire right side of the talk radio/television/blog world. The heat got so bad that, late in the week, Durbin apologized if his remarks had been "misunderstood." They weren't, and Durbin should not have apologized.

Instead, the senator should have hit back hard, just as the Amnesty International did when its comparison of Guantanamo to the Soviet gulag was attacked. By caving in, Durbin did just what the orchestrated right-wing smear effort required to succeed: It made him the story rather than focusing further attention on the outrageous violations of international law and human rights being perpetrated in Guantanamo and elsewhere in the name of the American people.

<snip>

Durbin was spot on in his assessment of Guantanamo. That's why he was so roundly attacked. He told the truth. And his message is of vital importance; the United States is better than this.

<Snip>

But instead of discussing what goes on at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other prison camps, the right would prefer to get into a senseless argument about whether "we" are better than the Nazis or Saddam Hussein or the Soviets or Pol Pot or whomever a critic of Guantanamo might raise as a comparison. It's a tactic the group running Washington now has used again and again: They're quite deliberately changing the subject -- from Guantanamo to words spoken on the Senate floor.

<snip>

http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5467045.html

[reality based]

1. Durbin was the voice of decency

His attackers know no shame. Their strategy may yet backfire if we persist.

[wurzel]

2. Is Frist saying what was described in that report was US policy?

If these were not the acts of countries like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, which other country would Frist prefer Durbin named?

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Drat! I missed his apology.

I appreciate the verbal loophole in his apology, but I agree with the editorial. I'd have used it as an opportunity to fight back even harder.

[katinmn]

4. right, we need to fight back!

[sunnystarr]

5. Where was the repuke outrage when these words spoken?

From rawstory.com:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Questions_of_hypocrisy_in_Republican_attacks_on_senator_who_raised_Nazis_in_Guantanamo_c_0620.html


A Republican senator invoked Nazism when criticizing stem cell research last year.

"We certainly have all seen the rejections of Nazi Germany's abuses of science,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) declared regarding his opposition to stem cell research last October.

“As a society and a nation, there ought to be some limit on what we can allow or should allow."

In response to a ruling on abortion last September, Congressman Steve King said following law on reproductive rights equivalent to a Nazi guard saying he was following orders.

“That, Mr. Speaker, is a ‘modern-day' equivalent of the Nazi prison guard saying 'I was just following orders,” he said on the House floor Sept. 8, 2004. “It was all legal in Nazi Germany at the time.”

Another senator even compared the Kyoto climate treaty to Nazism, repeating a quotation from a Russian official.

Sen. James Inhofe said Oct. 11, 2004 that Kyoto "would deal a powerful blow on the whole humanity similar to the one humanity experienced when Nazism and communism flourished."

The Oklahoma Republican added, "The world has certainly turned on its head that we Americans must look to Russians for speaking out strongly against irrational authoritarian ideologies."

Sen. Tom Cole (R-OK) dragged out Hitler to hit Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"Cole Claims a Vote Against Bush Is a Vote For Hitler," KTOK radio in Oklahoma blared last year.

"Republican Congressman Tom Cole claims a vote against the ‘re-election' of President Bush is like supporting Adolph Hitler during World War Two,” the station reported. “It's what he said recently before a meeting of Canadian County Republicans."

Cole later codified his statement, saying through a spokesperson: "What do you think Hitler would have thought if Roosevelt would've lost the election in 1944?”

Others, too, have likened Democratic policy to Nazism. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) compared a Democratic tax plan to Nazi law in 2002.

"Now, forgive me, but that is right out of Nazi Germany,” Gramm said. “I don't understand ... why all of a sudden we are passing laws that sound as if they are right out of Nazi Germany."

And just last month, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) compared Democrats with Adolf Hitler during the filibuster battle.

"Imagine, the rule that this is the way we confirm judges has been in place for 214 years, broken by the other side 2 years ago, and the audacity of some Members to stand up and say, How dare you break this rule, it is the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me, how dare you bomb my city. It's mine," Santorum said May 19. "This is no more the rule of the Senate than it was the rule of the Senate before not to filibuster."

[Minnesota_Lib]

7. Great insight, Sunnystar

I have copied your post and will use it as "smashface" on my right-wing friends and relitives. LOL

[zbdent]

6. From the party that regularly invokes "holocaust"

(yet another Nazi image) when it comes to allowing a woman the right to choose what to do with her own body . . .

[centristo]

9. did you see Jon Stewart's bit on comparing people to Hitler

from the Daily Show? So, so funny.


A Relatively Closer Look: Hitler References Watch>

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml

[Larkspur]

8. Excellent editorial. Someone should fax this to Durbin

[Dudley_DUright]

10. Makes me want to move back to Minnesota

Somehow I can't imagine the Orlando Sentinel writing this editorial.

[Burried News]

11. And let us not forget the ADL's contribution to free speech

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4734_52.htm

[struggle4progress]

12. Straight on! eom