...AND LEST WE FORGET RICHARD COHEN'S COLUMN TODAY
The worst writer in America, Richard Cohen -- that thoughtless, valueless, condescending, sociopathic sexist poster-boy for the vapidity of the Washington Post 's opinion section -- has written such inconsistent snot today that for once, we're not the only blog making fun of him. He even opened with a smug little "Blogger alert" -- "I have written a column in defense of Dick Cheney" -- as a holier-than-thou excuse to do no research for his barking, again. The blogs did not pay attention. Others have already pointed out that in his column two weeks ago he declared that torture "unequivocally" works and that any debate about such would be "silly," while today he writes that despite his disdain (oh?) for Cheney, "I have to wonder whether what he is saying now is the truth -- i.e., torture works." But we thought "wondering" was only something a gay Frenchman would do?
Deep breath:
In some sense, this is an arcane point since the United States insists it will not torture anymore -- not that, the Bush people quickly add, it ever did. Torture is a moral abomination, and President Obama is right to restate American opposition to it. But where I reserve a soupçon of doubt is over the question of whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" actually work. That they do not is a matter of absolute conviction among those on the political left, who seem to think that the CIA tortured suspected terrorists just for the hell of it.
[...]
Still, every dog has his day, and Cheney is barking up a storm on the efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture. He says he knows of two CIA memos that support his contention that the harsh interrogation methods worked and that many lives were saved. "That's what's in those memos," he told Schieffer. They talk "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped."
Cheney says he once had the memos in his files and has since asked that they be released. He's got a point. After all, this is not merely some political catfight conducted by bloggers, although it is a bit of that, too. Inescapably, it is about life and death -- not ideology, but people hurling themselves from the burning World Trade Center. If Cheney is right, then let the debate begin: What to do about enhanced interrogation methods? Should they be banned across the board, always and forever? Can we talk about what is and not just what ought to be?
God, you're like 98 years old, maybe it's time to grow up?
Only minor agreement: if any libtard wants full prosecutions because of "revenge," then yeah, just stop talking forever. But Richard Cohen thinks that this is ALL BLOGGERS -- anyone who uses the publishing medium of a web-log -- and that there cannot be any other reason to want prosecutions, because he can only think in political terms, because he has no values, because he is a leprous swamp monster.
Release more documents! Definitely! Many, many documents. Torture maybe could have worked a couple of times -- maybe! -- but hey guess what, it's illegal! And it's super-illegal when you authorize it as a program, which maybe you do after you get one good confession .
Since Richard Cohen doesn't have a problem defining these CIA techniques as "torture," why doesn't he think the U.S. should honor the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which Ronald Reagan ratified in 1988 and is enforceable as domestic law? It places "absolute prohibition" -- "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever," including "any threat of terrorism" -- on acts of torture andrequiresthat a State Party prosecute those complicit -- because if it doesn't, then some other State Party can. Has he read this, the torture law thing? NOT MUCH ROOM FOR YR SOUPÇONS IN THERE. And the leftist blogosphere didn't even write it!
So if Dick Cheney is secretly right and torture worked on a couple of fellows and saved 100,000 lives, then Americans can decide how they feel about that (for five seconds, during an American Idol commercial break). They shouldn't have to. It is illegal, and if Dick Cheney was acting so selflessly for his country, he would accept the legal consequences.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ISSUE A BLOGGER ALERT, CLOWNFARTS.