Douchebag of the Day

I don’t believe that Ashroft and Gonzo told those “public servants” it was OK to threaten to rape a detainee’s mother and kill his kids, stage mock executions, or put pressure on a detainee’s carotid artery until he passed out.

Actually, they did. That is in fact the problem that Holy Joe would prefer not be addressed.

Well, actually, I always thought that was why we prosecute and punish people who break the law; so that it will have a “chilling effect” which will prevent others from breaking the law for fear they will be punished also. What law school did Did Lieberman (L, Isreal) attend?

Apparently Joe thinks the Nuremberg trials were a mistake, since those involved had been told the atrocities they were committing were needed to protect the Fatherland.

Is there ANY degree of moral contortion Bush supporters WON’T engage in to protect him? I hope McCain punches Joe in the face the next time he sees him – after all, I’m sure the NVA commanders told the prison guards it was OK to torture peolpe.

@karen marie: From the Raw Story link:

Page 77 of the report discusses “unauthorized or undocumented techniques” used by CIA agents but not approved by the Bush administration’s Department of Justice.

I simply cannot be arsed to think about Droopy. Makes me too rage-y. Contact me when Alec Baldwin takes his seat, or when he chokes on his wormwood-and-bile sandwich or something.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Me, too. I’ll have to spend 15 minutes on the pandacam just to calm down.

2006 was a wasted opportunity to get rid of this stain on ALL of humanity.

About the only use he really has is as a human mine detector.

Joe’s like the boogery kid with the flood pants who would be loudly contrary just to get you to pay attention to him.

@RomeGirl: Actually, that describes about half of the US congress, now doesn’t it? But yeah, Joe more so than the others, down to the adenoidal whine.

@blogenfreude: That’s the out to keep the Decider in Chief and Darth Cheney, et. al. from the dock. They were watching fucking live video of interrogations from the situation room, and giving virtual thumbs up/thumbs down on each of the victims. All those tapes were ordered erased by CIA leadership. The book I just read about all of this was so well researched and terribly upsetting for the amount of collective guilt we have as the Nation That Tortured that I’ve literally blocked out both the title and the author.

@The Nabisco Quiver:
Is it 8MM?

This is nuts.

@The Nabisco Quiver: The Dark Side by Jane Mayer?

@blogenfreude: Who stole my client list?

@blogenfreude:
Should have posted it in Variety. Or made a request for a helper monkey. Or outsourced it to a 3rd world orphan.

@blogenfreude: Blah blah blahbitty blah. Yeah, they were “told” they could only do certain things, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?

If you believe that load of horse manure, I have a really nice bridge you will probably love at the price I’m offering it.

@karen marie: You’re right in the sense that they didn’t know what they didn’t want to know. Plausible deniability.

@blogenfreude: They’ll be overwhelmed with takers, probably someone who will leave the gig at 6 and go straight to driving cab in the evening. If someone is a half a month away from foreclosure and only eats by stuffing their faces surreptitiously in the cookie and dairy sections of the local supermarket, this will look like an offer from God. Likely, he will have people lined up in his living room competing to give him th best blow job for the gig. “No teeth or no fucking job, assholes!” Forbes will have him on the cover next month.

@The Nabisco Quiver: What was the book? I was sure of it at the time; I am sure he personally visited Saddam Hussein when he was in Iraq, to taunt him. You could see it in his cocky bully swagger, when Bush was pumped up because he still had a chubby from abusing his power by abusing some powerless person. Fucking bag of shit.

The terrible thing is that all Republicans want all muslims tortured and killed and used to make soap. None of them could ever imagine torture being anything less than the patriotic duty of all Americans.

@Prommie: nojo called it. She did some phenomenal research, and managed to get a hold of a lot of songbirds, although you don’t need much more than 20 pages to make the documented case for the indictment of pretty much the entire WH team. There were some principled, career spook/military/G-man types who tried to stand up and cry ‘foul’, but the combination of hubris and dickwaving in the early years didn’t allow them to be heard.

All of those bastards knew they were engaged in criminal activities, and only Darth Cheney could be sleeping well at night since we know he has no heart.

@The Nabisco Quiver: Just got it for my kindle. The kindle is a dangerous drug for a bookaholic. Its tooooooo easy.

@RomeGirl: I get the boogery kid – we had them too. But ‘floodpants’? I never heard that before. Please explain.

By the way T/J was in the city (New York: deal with it) and took the wrong subway and found myself having to walk across 8th street and OMFG what happened? Half of it’s closed down! I spent my teenage years there, people! The good ones, anyway. And it’s all gone. Well… the stoner/tee-shirt/Megadeath store is still there plus the tiny hardware store but everything else… Gone!

@Mistress Cynica: Have you ever watched the video you can find on Youtube if you search for “baby twin panda”? It’s nearly five minutes of two panda toddlers tussling.

@Benedick: My son and his friends called them just “floods.” Those are long pants that stop somewhere above your ankles.

@lynnlightfoot: It’s pulled me back from the brink several times.

@lynnlightfoot: Now wait, I remember – dimly – a time when American men all (perhaps not nojo owing to his ALW obsession) wore their trousers with a good one inch clearance over their huge cordovan clod-hoppers. To wear trousers with a break (let alone a properly tailored bottom) was not only faggy and degenerate but subversive too. One always saw a lot of sock on the morning commute. Is that what you mean by ‘floodpants’? But everyone wore them (not nojo, see note above) not just dorks, all American men wore their trousers at half-mast. Even James Coburn in The President’s Analyst. That’s how we knew they were American. So we could point at them in Piccadilly and jeer and… envy them their zippos.

@Benedick: “Floodpants” are best understood if you think of Jerry Lewis in one of his classic roles. “A lot of sock” was not a fashion statement, but a product of both outgrowing your pants and hiking them up near to your armpits.

“envy them their zippos”: is that what the Brit boys were calling it? Puts my dad’s impressive collection of zippos into new perspective…

@lynnlightfoot: Aka “highwaters.”

@The Nabisco Quiver: You’re not going to be rude about Jerry Lewis, one hopes.

But I have no answer!! If we mean dork-style, how is that different from what almost all American men wore? When I see period movies, eg. Revolutionary Road (what? there weren’t any young actors available? or American writers to make the adaptation? or Chris Hampton?) and the men wear properly cut trousers I cannot help but go Chhhnnngh! into my Horlicks.

@Benedick: When you’re growing up to be 6-2, highwater JCPenney jeans are a fact of life.