Dick Durbin: My Hero

In case you haven't heard the news, Senator Dick Durbin is a lunatic and a traitor to America.

At least, that's the spin the wright is trying to put on it.

By the way, that's not a typo--"wright" stands for the wrong right. Somehow simply calling these nuts "the right" gives them a subtle form of validation. If they're "the right", then they must be right, right?

But I digress.

Here's a few samples of what they've been saying about Dick Durbin:

"I think the senator's remarks are reprehensible. It's a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws."
--White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan

(typical response from the white house: "You don't support our troops!")

"You don't have to tell me because we all know. We all know how frustrating it is, and you don't have to tell us. But I'm not trying to persuade Durbin. In fact, I hope he doesn't apologize. He's speaking for the Democrats. He's telling us who the Democrats are, folks. It's one thing for me to sit here and tell you who I think they are, even though I'm right. When you hear it from somebody like Durbin (sigh) what more needs to be said? This is who they are. They have contempt for victory, contempt for the US military, contempt for our superpower status and contempt for the soldiers. We're not supposed to be winning this thing! If we were getting shellacked, they'd be happy."

--Rush Limbaugh

(Again, typical. He said more, but that's about all I could stand to read!)

After his most recent display of malignant partisanship and disregard for our country’s security, people in the rest of the country are no doubt wondering...whether Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has lost his mind.
--TheAmericanThinker.com

(a misnomer if I ever heard one--I refuse to insert a link to them here!)

Anyhoo, here's what he actually said:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Of course, what you need to realize is that he is describing the type of treatment that was sanctioned by the White House. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, while still White House counsel, produced memos detailing all the reasons why Geneva Convention protections did not apply to prisoners captured during the so-called "war on terror". So I guess that makes it acceptable to treat prisoners like animals.

Of course, by focusing attention on Durbin instead of on the issue, the White House conveniently manages to once again sidestep the issue of inhumane treatment of detainees at Gitmo and other places. They are, of course, assisted by the wright-wing media machine, as usual.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure most of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere deserve to be there. But subjecting someone to conditions you wouldn't put a dog in is the antithesis of everything this country stands for. And I congragulate Dick Durbin for having the guts to point that out!