24 Comments

1. Minerva:

Cliff has Andy Sully all worked up this morn.

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:00 am 2. JH Spyker:

Roger, Cliff May’s source are both anonymous. Why should they be trusted?

Anyway, I believe you despise such journalistic shortcuts, no?

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:04 am 3. Roger L Simon:

You have a point, JH Spyker. As I have said often, I have an extreme dislike for anonymous sources. The big NYT article of a couple of days, which launched all this, was a virtual symphony of the anonymous.

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:28 am 4. John Kelly:

Obama is right in again coming out against a witch hunt. On this and a lot of other areas it is overdue for him to tell Nancy that he is the President and she had better fall in line behind him. Obama also has the sense that a witch hunt could end up hurting him.

Apr 24, 2009 - 9:30 am 5. Lightnin' Hopkins:

I wonder, if we had kept KSM’s forehead nice and dry, just how the lefty terror appeasers would have reacted to an attack on L.A.? Actually I don’t. The catch-all answer to everything is to blame Bush.

Apr 24, 2009 - 10:26 am 6. Lightnin' Hopkins:

More “looking forward” from Team O:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/obama-adminis-3.html

Apr 24, 2009 - 10:32 am 7. Professor Guvinoff:

10 minutes with Nancy Pelosi just by herself, or with the caterpillar included?

Apr 24, 2009 - 11:04 am 8. tim maguire:

Ya know, John, I wonder if the best thing for Obama to do is threaten to give Nancy what she’s asking for. We all know that these methods enjoyed broad bi-partisan support and that an investigation would be disasterous for most democratic politicians (disasterous in the sense of revealed hypocracy).

I believe Nancy is doing what France did in the run up to Iraq–they knew the United States would do the right thing no matter what they did, so they demogogued to the masses instead of helping. Same here. If Nancy is confident Obama will do the right thing, then she is free to demogogue.

Apr 24, 2009 - 11:39 am 9. David Thomson:

Anonymous sources are inherently unavoidable in certain circumstances. Relying on such an individual, however, should be the exception to the general rule. The main question we are confronted at this moment is whether we trust the judgment of Cliff May. Has he ever been played for a sucker? If so, how often?

Apr 24, 2009 - 11:41 am 10. Lem:

The ‘Parsing Commission’ has begun taking testimony.

“We were not — I repeat — were not told that gas chambers or any of these other ovens were used.”
“What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel … opinions, that they could be used, but not that they would,” she said

Apr 24, 2009 - 1:39 pm 11. Tcobb:

John Kelly writes:
Obama is right in again coming out against a witch hunt. On this and a lot of other areas it is overdue for him to tell Nancy that he is the President and she had better fall in line behind him. Obama also has the sense that a witch hunt could end up hurting him.
No offense intended to you sir but I found it very amusing when you talk about a “witch hunt” and Nancy Pelosi in the same paragraph. Could this be true? And will Dorothy be there with a bucket of water to throw on her when they track Pelosi down?

Apr 24, 2009 - 1:43 pm 12. zhombre:

Just for perspective, here’s a manual for real torture:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture1.html

Apr 24, 2009 - 1:45 pm 13. EdGi:

10 minutes listening to Nancy is cruel/unusual/humiliating and bad for your health. Just look what listening to Nancy’s discussion of St Augustine did to Cardinal Egan. Remember, under the Intel Reform Act, her actions are statutory approval by her not acting. Lawyers opinions to agencies are not approval for either Congress under the act or the Admin; Bush or Condi had to approve before it went to Nancy, and then she had the process options in Campbell vs Clinton. Not acting is legal approval by Congress. This will turn into another Ollie North hearing if the idiot dems persist and put Condi in the dock. She will not have potted plants for defenders, and the dems will end up having to indict themselves.

Apr 24, 2009 - 1:46 pm 14. EdSki:

The biggest worry I have (worry, not fear)is if these show trials go forward, in what ever form, grand juries, committee hearings, subpoenas, protracted investigations, what ever, the liberals in Congress will have to look into themselves at some point. And I don’t see the current crop as mature enough to do that. My concern is this all going on behind closed doors where the democrats will completely white wash their involvement.

If it has to be fair, it has to be public. If it’s public and fair, it has to include democrats. But I don’t think democrats will stand for their own public humiliation. So the only alternative is to not poke the bear (which Obama just did) or result to some behind the scenes, closed door, type of inquiry. And in that setting the democrats hold all the cards.

Do they really have what it takes to start up the Spanish Inquisition again?

Apr 24, 2009 - 1:59 pm 15. Crusader:

Having to testify in front of Pelosi/Reid/Frank is cruel and unusual torture!

Apr 24, 2009 - 1:59 pm 16. jw:

Those trying to prosecute people for their opinions, legal or otherwise, are not liberals at all but illiberals, intent on violating the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Apr 24, 2009 - 2:41 pm 17. Michael DeLong:

I am rather amazed at this. Does this mean that those Japanese soldiers who were prosecuted after World War II for waterboarding American prisoners were entirely innocent and fully justified? The fact that waterboarding was a favorite tactic of the Spanish Inquisition and the Khmer Rouge, in my opinion, should tell us something about it. And why is this debate absurd? I think it’s vital to our democracy to ask the question whether waterboarding is torture and whether the United States should torture suspected terrorists.

Apr 24, 2009 - 2:59 pm 18. Playing Partisan Politics with Terrorists and Torture « ACT Northern Virginia/Richmond/DC Metro Chapter.:

[...] Playing Partisan Politics with Terrorists and Torture 24 04 2009 President Obama is willing to play hardball politics even when it endangers national security. (Also see Roger L. Simon: “Tortured by Pelosi.”) [...]

Apr 24, 2009 - 3:22 pm 19. Mike_K:

I am rather amazed at this. Does this mean that those Japanese soldiers who were prosecuted after World War II for waterboarding American prisoners were entirely innocent and fully justified?

My information is that the Japanese used very different techniques that involved real drowning instead of the 10 second intervals used with KSM. Secondly, the Japanese were in a very different situation, being interested in torture more for its own sake than urgent and critical information. Some other lefty was comparing it to what was done with pilots from the Doolittle raid. Do you really think the Japanese were trying to find out where “Shangri-La was?”

Also, let’s see the links to the Inquisition using water boarding. They used a lot fire. Maybe you were referring to efforts to put the fire out Is this your source?

Sounds like a reach to me.

Apr 24, 2009 - 4:30 pm 20. Dave:

What the Japs did was commonly called the “water cure”. Prisoner was forced to drink excessive quantities of water (and other substances) and then was beaten upon the distended abdomen.

One US officer was convicted by court martial and cashiered in the Philippine War for doing the same thing.

This “procedure” has been known throughout recorded history. When considered justified, the justification has been on theological grounds (at least in the West).
It was designed and intended to produce confessions. Gaining information
was NOT the goal.

Waterboarding is of more recent orgin. It has been used simply to inflict pain/elicit confessions. However, it has a definite legitimate use in loosening tongues and enhancing veracity.

Never did it myself, but did stand nearby and watch it being done circa 1970. Met with my hearty approval. So long as sound judgement is used as to whom it shall be applied and under what circumstances, it is legit.

BTW If anybody goes to trial over this, that would be a good opportunity to remind jurors of their right (and duty) to nullify the statute in question and vote “NOT GUILTY”
no matter what.

Apr 24, 2009 - 5:04 pm 21. qrstuv:

“I think it’s vital to our democracy to ask the question whether waterboarding is torture and whether the United States should torture suspected terrorists.”

While we’re on the subject, I think it’s vital to our democracy to ask why the media and the Democrats, to this day, are virtually silent on the Clinton extraordinary rendition program. Why do Democrats get a free pass on something that is demonstrably far worse than waterboarding? Is it good for our democracy that the media are complicit in this double standard? Is it healthy for us that the media are apparently more interested in making Democrats look good (and Republicans look bad) than they are in their ostensible jobs?

And do Democrats have any sense of shame?

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:41 pm 22. njcommuter:

The frustrating thing is that the Left (including the Dems) has been accusing the GOP and the Right in general of lying for so long that people will assume that the accusations of Pelosi’s lying will be treated as an empty counter-move.

The MSM makes it impossible to keep focus on any reality; all one can follow is their Narrative.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:59 am 23. clear53:

Don’t get fooled by the good cop/bad cop.

There is no space between Obama, Pelosi and the Dems on this subject (or any other, for that matter).

Obama the narcissist is pretending to be above the fray simply to keep his poll ratings high.

Apr 25, 2009 - 10:12 am 24. ray_g:

“I think it’s vital to our democracy to ask the question whether waterboarding is torture and whether the United States should torture suspected terrorists.”

I agree, but it is a big jump from that to prosecuting those whose opinion, at the time, differed from what we might now conclude.

We now look back at the Nuremberg trials as an unalloyed good, but at the time there was a lot of concern that it would have the appearance of just another case of the winners prosecuting the losers. I think that is a legitimate concern with these proposed prosecutions.

Apr 28, 2009 - 10:50 am

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