Simmer Down

But as far as we know none of their organs failed. /John Yoo

@blogenfreude: Abu Ghraib all over again, and alas, no surprise by now.

But hey, Holder no longer need worry about the Clinton pardons staining his record. Those will just be a footnote to the war crimes he’s abetting now.

Oops, forgot the mantra: “We need to compromise on [fill in the blank] so we can compromise healthcare reform.”

@nojo: Well, since the L.A. Coroner ruled Michael Jackson’s death a homicide, the teabaggers aren’t going to be on teevee screaming the crazy about Death Panels for a couple of weeks.

@SanFranLefty:

Ooh, what other declining pop star could we off to keep those numbnuts off the teevee? Is Whitney Houston still alive?

@SanFranLefty: MJ is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

John Durham’s “doctor” just called. He said that John’s about to die from a totally normal, non-suspicious case of “food poisoning,” and that John’s soon-to-be discovered, devout religious beliefs require him to be cremated before dawn, most likely in an exploding ambulance.

An indignant Keef, or new Top Gear? Ah, choices.

@chicago bureau: Tonight? Dudgeon Alert is High.

@chicago bureau: Flipping back and forth between Jets preseason and Top Gear – TG is all stuff I’ve seen on YouTube. Meh.

Here is the Orwellian doublespeak: “to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees.”

Seems to me that ALL of them who engaged in the waterboarding and other forms of torture which the Bush admin’s whore lawyers like Yoo said were legal, but really were not legal, broke the law in their dealings with detainees.

What he is really saying is he is going to look into whether anyone went beyond the “legal” (by Bush whore lawyer standards) illegality.

He has no intention of investigating “illegal” conduct, he is only going to investigate UNAUTHORIZED illegal conduct.

Which means that either A: He accepts that following orders IS a defense with regard to the authorized illegal conduct; or B: he accepts a priori that the authorized illegal conduct was legal.

Both are unacceptable.

What its really about is finding some sacrificial scapegoats to throw on the fire, to distract from the fact that they have no intention of going after the worse criminals who authorized, and created the legal fictions justifying the authorization, the rampant illegal torture they engaged in.

Its as if the Nuremburg tribunals confined themselves from the outset into invesitgating and punishing only those nazis who went beyond the authorized murder and brutality, while allowing the high ranking nazis who authorized the murder and brutality to go into peaceful retirement.

@Promnight: If end game isn’t little kids swinging from Cheney’s feet as he hangs from the gallows on the Capitol Mall, then it won’t be justice Holder delivers.

Cheri Oteri

@FlyingChainSaw: I want a Cheney-Gonzales-Shrub pinata at the Vietnam Memorial. Seems fitting.

@SanFranLefty: Sure. What should we use for pinata sticks? RPGs?

@FlyingChainSaw: Chainsaws, natch.

@nojo: Seems that Black Eagle is proving he was a really bad poker player. In this case, he’s going to allow Holder to do enough headline grabbing to muck up health care reform, but not enough to really wash the scum off the streets of our nation’s soul.