Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Keith Olberman on Mukasey, Daniel Levin & Waterboarding

Read this. Watch the video.

"Waterboarding is torture," Daniel Levin was to write. Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protester. He was no troublemaking politician. He was no table-pounding commentator. Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American and a brave man.

Brave not just with words or with stances, even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared or bought off.

Charged, as you heard in the story from ABC News last Friday, with assessing the relative legality of the various nightmares in the Pandora's box that is the Orwell-worthy euphemism "Enhanced Interrogation," Mr. Levin decided that the simplest, and the most honest, way to evaluate them ... was to have them enacted upon himself.

Daniel Levin took himself to a military base and let himself be waterboarded....

MSNBC commentator goes on to call on Democratic Senators Feinstein and Schumer to recant their support for Bush lackey appointee, Michael Mukasey.

Thus Michael Mukasey, on the eve of the vote that will make him the high priest of the law of this land, cannot and must not answer a question, nor even hint that he has thought about a question, which merely concerns the theoretical definition of waterboarding as torture.

Because, Mr. Bush, in the seven years of your nightmare presidency, this whole string of events has been transformed.

From its beginning as the most neglectful protection ever of the lives and safety of the American people ... into the most efficient and cynical exploitation of tragedy for political gain in this country's history ... and, then, to the giddying prospect that you could do what the military fanatics did in Japan in the 1930s and remake a nation into a fascist state so efficient and so self-sustaining that the fascism would be nearly invisible.

But at last this frightful plan is ending with an unexpected crash, the shocking reality that no matter how thoroughly you might try to extinguish them, Mr. Bush, how thoroughly you tried to brand disagreement as disloyalty, Mr. Bush, there are still people like Daniel Levin who believe in the United States of America as true freedom, where we are better, not because of schemes and wars, but because of dreams and morals.

And ultimately these men, these patriots, will defeat you and they will return this country to its righteous standards, and to its rightful owners, the people.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself on your blogroll and I have gladly returned the favour.

After the 'debate' on waterboarding perhaps next we can discuss if water falling out of the sky is rain, being kicked in the balls is unpleasant and if the chief law officer of a country enables torture should we reclassify 'assassination' as 'voting' and have ourselves big fucking election.

I tried staying calm, I failed.

Valtin said...

Thanks for the link. I obviously liked your blog, and that's my sole criteria for putting anyone on my blogroll.

As for staying calm, how can anyone aware and alive today not go running around with arms flailing at the ridiculous stupidity and torpor of the general population, and at the criminals who leer at us and operate like atomic psychopaths... well it is beyond me.

Staying calm circa 2007: a survival mechanism.

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