Category: The Dish

And then we get to the familiar punchline: the cover-up:

Army investigators were forced to close their inquiry in June 2005 after they said task force members used battlefield pseudonyms that made it impossible to identify and locate the soldiers involved. The unit also asserted that 70 percent of its computer files had been lost.

Abu Ghraib didn’t seem to change much:

On June 25, 2004, nearly two months after the disclosure of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, an F.B.I. agent in Iraq sent an e-mail message to his superiors in Washington, warning that a detainee captured by Task Force 6-26 had suspicious burn marks on his body. The detainee said he had been tortured.

Does Mark Levin consider burn marks on a detainee’s body evidence of torture? How about "electric shocks to detainees with stun guns"? Or does he have some other Orwellian term to excuse this?

The administration continues its absurd public mantra that "we do not torture." It’s empirically untrue. The most generous explanation of it is that the president and his staff don’t know what they unleashed with their memos. But after Abu Ghraib, they have absolutely no excuse. Their refusal to acknowledge the McCain Amendment suggests, at best, continued denial and, at worst, a clear decision to allow this kind of behavior to continue on the down-low. In short: either Rumsfeld is a liar and a torture-enforcer or he is an incompetent whose management of the military has led to one of the darkest stains on the military’s honor in its history. Either way, it is a scandal he is still in office. Every day he remains defense secretary is an implicit statement by the president that the United States has and does practise torture. And that this president still has no interest in preventing it.

Oh, and there’s no evidence that this sadism produced any useful intelligence in any case. Most experts will tell you this is par for the course. As Orwell noted, the point of torture is torture.

I haven’t read a review as brutal as this one in a very long time. I enjoyed every word of it.

Ann Althouse has quite a discussion going.

They’re not dispositive, but they certainly are suggestive. What do they suggest? That there were nebulous links between Saddam and al Qaeda; that Iraq had elaborate methods for bribing French politicians; and that Saddam was intent on concealing and destroying all evidence that his regime had been trying to make WMDs. Hmmm.

"Iraq The Model’s" Mohammed has some thoughts.

Marvin Olasky coined the term "compassionate conservatism" and was once regarded as a guru for Bush’s presidency. It’s therefore interesting to see his review of Bruce Bartlett’s new book, "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." Money quote:

"Players of the venerable board game Clue know the moment when the party’s over. A contestant may say, "Colonel Mustard in the dining room with the revolver," and be shown surreptitiously a card that kills that theory. But when the next participant says, "Mr. Bush in the conservatory with the lead pipe," and other players say, "I can’t refute that," it’s time to give in.

That’s how I felt when reading Bruce Bartlett’s Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006). The desire for alliteration sometimes leads to over-the-top titles, and words like bankrupt and betrayed are too strong. And yet, when Mr. Bartlett lambasts the Bush record on education, drug legislation, pork barrel spending, and other expand-the-government programs‚Äîwell, I can’t refute that.

The metamorphosis of "compassionate conservatism" is particularly sad. I never thought that a switch from 70 years of increasing Washington-centrism would come easily, but I hoped some decentralization was possible. There’s still hope‚Äîwatch movement toward the use of social service vouchers‚Äîbut I can’t refute the charge that this concept has become a rationale for patronage."

The jig really is up, isn’t it? Hey, don’t blame me. I endorsed the other guy last time around for all the same reasons other conservatives are finally voicing in public.

A Canadian reader writes:

"I totally agree with you on this one. Comedy Central should air the South Park rerun and let the Scientologists fall on their faces and try to sue Matt Stone and Trey Parker – or the network.
It’s worth pointing out that they showed the rerun on Canada’s Comedy Network a few weeks ago despite pressure from the Church of Scientology not to air it again. I got the chance to see it during my ‘lunch’ at work, and I can tell you, the TV lounge was packed with many of my co-workers who, like me, didn’t see it the first airing during the fall. I usually don’t watch South Park, but I wanted to see what the fuss was all about ‚Äì and what’s the big deal? Nicole Kidman begging her ex to ‘come out of the closet?’ The Scientology operatives who laid out what their religion believes ‚Äì then threatened to sue the poor kid when he repeated, verbatim, something else they said?
We all got a huge laugh out of it.
Your point about the Catholic League managing to stop another episode of South Park is well taken. This was like the Simpsons episode a few years ago, the one about the Super Bowl and the commercial parody of ZZ Top sponsored by ‘the Catholic Church: We’ve made a few … changes.’ I remember the League went ballistic over it. As a Catholic, however, I totally got the point and couldn’t stop laughing. I still do when it’s in reruns.
Sometimes, I just wish these guys would just get a sense of humour.
As for seeing MI: 3, rest assured I won’t. Seeing him in ‘The Firm’ gave me more than enough of Cruise to last a lifetime."

It strikes me that people with a secure sense of their own faith are often the least liable to get upset by parodies or comedies about it. Religions may deal in divine truths, but they are run by human beings. And the combination is often funny. True believers know that; and don’t care when they’re made fun of. Insecure believers – and they often need fundamentalism to keep their own souls untroubled by doubt – are the touchiest.

I’ll be on the Chris Matthews Show on Sunday morning, discussing, among other things, the role of the blogosphere in politics. Chris remains unimpressed.

He makes James Dobson look enlightened. The great moderating force in Islam in Iraq has this view of what should befall homosexuals:

"The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing."

Er, thanks for letting us know more about this great religion of peace and tolerance.

Tom Cruise is denying that he put any pressure on Viacom to pull the re-run of the "Trapped in the Closet" episode. But it’s important to remember that the show never aired at all in Britain, where the media is more vulnerable to libel claims. Ever wonder why? Comedy Central’s official explanation – that it aired another show to salute Isaac Hayes – also strikes me as absurd. Hayes just called the show bigoted, and you choose that moment to honor him? The only way Comedy Central can show that they are not lying about this is to broadcast "Trapped in the Closet" again. Next week. Or at least, to put it in rotation again (as of now, it isn’t scheduled). This seems on the face of it to be yet another example of a big media company kow-towing to religious sensitivities. Comedy Central has already yanked one South Park episode, under pressure from the Catholic League. Now they’re caving in to the Scientologists. Can you see them allowing another South Park episode which includes Muhammad? South Park has portrayed Muhammad before, but that was before the Islamist bullies took to the streets. You think Viacom cares about freedom of expression?

So here’s what we can do. Email Viacom to protest their submission to Tom Cruise. The main email address I can find on their site is press@viacom.com. Email Comedy Central to demand the airing of "Trapped in the Closet"; use this page to send an email and put "Support Freedom of Speech" in the contents line; and add your own personal message beneath. If you’re a blogger, encourage your readers to do the same, and advertize these email addresses on your site. Let’s see if we can harness the blogosphere against the censors. Finally, make sure you don’t go see Paramount’s "Mission Impossible: 3," Cruise’s upcoming movie. I know you weren’t going to see it anyway. But now any money you spend on this movie is a blow against freedom of speech. Boycott it. Tell your friends to boycott it.