"GOP wrong to kill the messenger"

[BattyDem]

I searched but didn't find this article on DU, so I figured I'd post it. :-)
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Daily News (NY)
June 21, 2005

"GOP wrong to kill the messenger"
by Richard Cohen

Those of us who have read accounts of the gulag or of the interrogation methods of the Nazis are familiar with the infinite varieties of torture. Maybe for that reason I did not feel it was anything of a stretch for Sen. Dick Durbin to refer to those regimes when reciting what an FBI agent had seen at Guantanamo ...

Whatever that is, it is not America.

This was Durbin's point.

*****

The contempt the Bush administration has shown for world opinion and international law is costing us plenty. We are not the Soviet Union, and we are not Nazi Germany, and Dick Durbin did not intend to say we are. His detractors know that. But their intention is not to answer criticism but to silence a critic.

*****


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/320773p-274317c.html

[biscotti]

1. Thanks for posting this

Of course Mr. Cohen is right. It is the usual GOP tactic. Never admit a wrong and turn the light on and degrade the messenger.

[w13rd0]

2. Is this Cohen as in former def secretary under Clinton Cohen?

Or someone else?

[BattyDem]

3. He's a syndicated columnist for the Washinton Post

:-)

On edit: Wasn't Clinton's Defense Secretary named William Cohen?

[Inland]

4. "Whatever that is, it is not America"

Richard Cohen owes me a dollar. This is what I've been saying for days. It isn't that we are Nazis in all their evil. It's that we aren't America anymore.

[BattyDem]

5. Exactly

Unfortunately, whenever you say that to a RWer, the response is, "Well, everything changed after 9/11 ... blah, blah, blah ..." :eyes:

[rexcat]

6. After 9/11 the constitution became irrelevant...

and our civil liberties went out the door. Anytime a repuke says something stupid like "everything changed after 9/11" I turn it back on them. Once we trash the constitution and our civil liberties the terrorists have won.

[evilkumquat]

7. Nope...

As long as we continue to go shopping, the terrorist will NEVER win!

Evil Kumquat

[rexcat]

11. Great point...

I feel so much better now!

[Inland]

8. And then you say, "Right".

"Changed for the worse. The terrorists destroyed the towers and we are destroying everything else all on our own: our rights, our freedoms, our ideals, all so that Bush can have more power. We aren't the country we used to be."

[Edgewater_Joe]

9. But Whatever Else It Is, It IS Repunkican

They never disguise their strategies, and this latest one is blatant: slander and slur all critics until they stay silent, especially regarding Iraq and all its cancerous roots.

But we also see the strategy: not to do a DLC capitulation (which I'm guessing is what Daley and Biden did to Durbin) but to stand up and shove back, as Amnesty International did and continues to do and as Howard Dean will undoubtedly continue to do.

The Repunks are wounded, and as we all know that makes them even more vicious and dangerous -- so Democrats need to stand tall. For a change.

[Inland]

10. They are certainly working hard to lower standards --- again

We are used to repugs trying to "suffer" the soft bigotry of low expectations, but they basically adopt the "as long as we aren't worse than Saudi or as bad as Nazis" standard.

Listen to them and they not only approve of permanent secret detention, but the alternative to denying that abuse occurs to say that they deserve it anyway: "They are cutting our heads off! They are flying planes into our buildings!" And if they deserve it even though we know nothing about what these people did, or where they were captured even, then no wonder we aren't all that worried about Iraqi civilians, or Afghanistan falling back into chaos.

In the same way Condi now implies that we were attacked by the whole middle east, Americans are happy to see muslims getting theirs.

It's not America. It's a twisted, sick degradation, embraced by rightie talk radio and our neocon leaders.