The Sweinstein Stench and the Schumer Shuffle

In November 2007, senawhores Feinstein and Schumer bolted ranks and voted to confirm fellow think-alike Mukasey as Attorney General. Nothing partisan here.

Explaining yet another one of her DemoPublican switcheroos Feinstein wrote in the LA Times (32 Nov 07) “Judge Mukasey is not Alberto R. Gonzales.” The Justice Department was demoralized and needed “a new dynamic of independence from the White House”

Feinstein acknowledged that “serious questions”had been raised about Mukasey’s “views on torture” but that he had assured her in a personal letter that he knew that water-boarding was “illegal” under US Military Law and the Geneva Conventions.

“Congress,” Feinstein wrote, “should go further and explicitly ban waterboarding and other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques for all parts of the government” presumably including the Post Office, the Department of Education and perhaps even the CIA.

Until then, however, “the bottom line” was that she “hope[d]” Judge Mukasey would “direct the Justice Department where the facts and the law lead, not where the White House dictates.”

Of course the real bottom line is that both Mukasey and Feinstein were hiding under The Rock of Technicalities -- waterboarding whether it was fun or folly was not yet “illegal” for the CIA.

Schumer was no less two-faced. In an article penned for the Spew York Times (06 Nov 07) he explained that he was voting for Mukasey because the Justice Deparment was in “desperate need of a strong leader, committed to depoliticizing the agency’s operations.” “Most important,” Schumer wrote, “Judge Mukasey has demonstrated his fidelity to the rule of law”

Ah... but then came the fine print on the encyclopedia installment purchase plan.... While Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding was “illegal” was deeply unsatisfactory to Schumer --- deeply --- “ Congress is now considering — and I hope we will soon pass — a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law.”

Ah... the Schumer Shuffle... praise Mukasey for fidelity to legality, excoriate him not stating that waterboarding was “illegal” when it wasn’t and then express a pious hope that Congress might one day pass and Mukasey might one day enforce a law illegalizing waterboarding.

Actually, most people didn’t give a rats ass about Chuck's legalities. What most people found offensive was Mukasey’s helpless moral quandary as to whether dunking was torture or not, as a matter of painful fact.

The Schumer Shuffle concluded by stating that “if we block Judge Mukasey’s nomination and then learn in six months that waterboarding has continued unabated, that victory [for Law] will seem much less valuable. No one questions that Judge Mukasey would do much to remove the stench of politics from the Justice Department. I believe we should give him that chance.”

Ah... but the Stench from the Hill...

Today, Dan Eggen of the Washington Post reported

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said this morning that waterboarding was deemed legal by the Justice Department at the time it was used by the CIA on three al-Qaeda captives, and as a result the Justice Department "cannot possibly" investigate whether a crime occurred. . . .

Mukasey's remarks were a direct rebuff to demands from many leading Democrats this week that the Justice Department open a criminal probe into the CIA's use of waterboarding, . . .

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Wednesday that President Bush could approve the use of the tactic again and that such a decision would "depend on the circumstances," ...

Mukasey, is scheduled to appear before the Judiciary Committee again, where no doubt he will be grilled with mock mercilessness by Schumer and Feinstein, who will demand that he follow a law Congress has not passed.

And the stench rolls on.

©WCG, 2008
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Blendables

The News: CIA Chief, Mike McConnell, told Congress yesterday that Al Qaeda had improved its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States, producing militants, including new Western recruits, capable of blending into American society and attacking domestic targets.

The Quiz: What is the key word in this news? (a) ability (b) attacks (c) blending (d) domestic?

Most people, including most congressoids, will doubtless choose a, b and c: ability, attack, us. "Omygod... we need more security and fast!!

The true key word, of course, is “blending”. For six years now the US Government has been nabbing and deep-storing a whole bunch of them terrorist rag-heads -- brownish people that worship that heathen allah-fellow -- not good Jews and Gentiles, like us.

It really made no difference that that Mohammad fellow may have been an English citizen, or that what’s-his-name Ali Ah-whatever was a Canadian or that Padilla was a US subject . We all saw through that. All that was just a matter of probably falsely obtained passports. The guts of the matter is that they are “them” or at least “those”.

Some of us may have worried that these them types were being tortured or denied the basic protections of minimal due process; but, when all was said and done, our concern was basically a sort of legal-charity. Certainly, nothing we had to worry about that cut too close to our own bones.

Now comes Intelligence Chief McConnel to tell us that the big Al “Q” has produced blendable western attack agents. In other words, people that look just like you and me. And not just look, but have names like Smith, Scalia and Schmidt. Why, maybe even names like Sachs, Sulzberger and Schumer. Blendables.

What this means is that the proverbial “potential terrorist” includes people just like you and me. Which mean that in the eyes of our All Seeing All Beneficent State Guardian, people just like you and me are indistinguishable from “potential terrorists”.

Got it?

Welcome to Baghdad folks.

©WCG, 2008

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The Struggle for Perfect Security

Homeland Security Leader, Michael Chertoff, has nullified a court ruling halting the construction of a border security fence until further environmental impact studies were completed. Chertoff's swift and summary executive aktion will be appreciated by those who value safety above all else and who have little patience for quibbling courts getting in the way of our National Security.

Ever quick to see the core issue and seize the highground, Chertoff explained that he was confident the lower court would ultimately have been overruled in any case and so was merely hurrying things up a little. Chertoff also told us that dirty Mexicans were strewing lots of environmentally degrading garbage in the area which was far worse than bulldozing the whole damn preserve and turning it into a clean if lifeless swatch of concrete.

Of course, what applies to environmental laws applies to any law and we can all rest secure in the knowledge that one man will decide what is best for us and will let nothing stand in the way of securing the nation as tight as the screw will bear.


©WCG, 2007