The Right’s Torture Backfire
In a new Daily Beast column I argue that even though the right’s effort to change the subject on torture away from “what did the Bush administration do?”, to “what was Nancy Pelosi briefed about?” has been an incredible tactical success, it stands a huge chance of backfiring:
And here’s where the right’s tactical acumen comes up short. Various conservative commentators have expressed their hope that gunning for Pelosi will blunt progressive calls for a “truth commission” to thoroughly investigate what really happened on Bush’s trip to the “dark side”. Fox’s Neil Cavuto said we might be in a “Mexican standoff” wherein Pelosi would agree to drop the idea of investigations to prevent herself from attracting scrutiny. Steven Hayes, Dick Cheney’s official biographer, said, “Democrats who have been so enthusiastic about truth commissions have to be stopping and saying, OK, wait a second.” What conservatives are missing here is that this is a fight they were winning before they started gunning for Pelosi. Their best ally in this fight was Barack Obama, whose desire to “move forward” rather than focusing on the past had been the subject of much consternation. Had conservatives simply reached out to grab the hand that was being extended to them, they could have gotten what they wanted.
But in their zeal to score a tactical win, the right has made a truth commission more likely not less likely. Obama wanted to avoid a backward-looking focus on torture in part because it distracted from his legislative agenda. But if we’re going to be looking backward anyway, thanks to conservatives’ insistence on complaining about Pelosi, then the move forward strategy lacks a rationale. And far from forcing a standoff in which Pelosi will abandon her support for an investigation, the right has forced her into a corner from which she can’t give in to moderate Democrats’ opposition to such a move without looking like she’s cravenly attempting to save her own skin.
I’ve seen polling which suggests that the public is reasonably sympathetic to the pro-torture position. But I’m quite certain the public isn’t generally aware of facts that would certainly come out in a truth commission process. For example, that the Bush administration’s torture techniques were specifically modeled on techniques employed by Chinese forces during the Korean War for the purpose of extracting false confessions. That the experts in the techniques whose advice was sought in designing the torture program warned interrogators that the methods were illegal and unlikely to produce reliable information. That one principle purpose of the torture program appears to have been to generate false information about links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Or that abusive detention practices occurred far beyond Abu Ghraib and have led to the deaths of many people.
59 Responses to “The Right’s Torture Backfire”
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May 18th, 2009 at 9:34 am
where’s the link? or are you pulling a dowd on yourself?
May 18th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Free advice, Matt: find a copy editor. Your tendency to pile clause on clause (”And more to the point, it gets us refocused on the real issue here, which is not about what briefings were or were not given to Congress but about the underlying activity that was the subject of the briefings.”) makes your longer-form writing extremely difficult to read, at least for me.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:43 am
As another commentator pointed out, by making this a bipartisan witch hunt, it is no longer a partisan witch hunt, which is a huge strategic victory for those seeking a thorough investigation.
In that sense, I think this is another case of the GOP falling for their own spin–I guess they really believed that those pushing for a thorough investigation were all just partisan hacks, and they thought they were calling a bluff.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:43 am
MattY, this sounds like a lot of wishful thinking.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Well, Matt, you could actually show us that Pew poll from last month that tells a different story than your ancient Gallup poll from January.
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May 18th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I would agree that the right is trying to use Pelosi as a justification for their torture policies. However this does not mean that we should ignore the fact that she apparently knew about what was going on
Too often MR YGLESIAS seems to seperate the world into liberals and conservatives. Us vs them. Torture is wrong.Whether a liberal knew about it , or a conservative did , is beside the point.While the republicans should recieve 90 % of the blame for the torture policies. Too many democrates looked the other way.This was often not because they believed in torture. It was because of political cowardice.
To suggest that we ignore Pelosi’s involvement because it might aid the political right is silly. If anything the democrates would be sending a strong message of accountability. The kind of message that the republicans refuse to enforce on their own members.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Incidentally, relative to the effectiveness of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in acquiring pertinent intelligence, attached is a link to a thread in Ed Braytons’ blog with excerpts from Ali Soufans’ testimony before a Congressional committee. Unlike the folks arguing back and forth on this issue, Mr. Soufan actually participated in interrogations and therefore, his credentials would appear to be impeccable. His testimony indicates that “enhanced interrogation techniques” are fine for extracting false confessions but not so for intelligence information.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/05/soufans_testimony.php#more
May 18th, 2009 at 9:48 am
This is an interesting idea, but I’m not sure it will actually work the way you think it will. The actual politics of setting up the Truth Commission or whatever will be so complicated and controversial that even if the Commission does happen, poeple will charge it with bias and focus only on what makes the other side look bad.
That being said, I do think going after Nancy Pelosi for the interrogations issue is stupid.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:54 am
regarding SLC ‘S comment #7
Thank you for providing that link.It is actually the best arguement against torture that i have ever read.Especially about how waterboarding and sleep deprivation take so much time , that they are inneffective against a so called “ticking time bomb”.
Thank you again SLC.
And for the record i think DTM at comment 3 hits the nail on the head perfectly.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:59 am
what the right-wingers most centrally fail to understand is this:
democrats are free citizens of a democracy. we do not elect heroes and masters, we elect public servants. and if they screw up, we demand accountability.
republicans, in contrast, are always subjects of a sovereign, a fuhrer, a master. whether it is reagan, bush, or limbaugh, they always have a hero, and they cannot disobey.
and they think we’re the same way.
they actually think we give a damn what happens to pelosi. they think they can hold her hostage, and get us to back down.
they’re wrong. i want her investigated. if she is guilty, i want her sent up. she means nothing to me, other than as she serves the public interest and obeys the laws. if she has been an incompetent employee, she should be fired.
and the same goes, and always will go, for obama.
the republican attitude is a bit pathetic, really- – but then, it’s always hard for spineless, servile subjects to understand the outlook of free citizens.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and when Obama finally releases the memo that Cheney wants then public opinion will swing even further in the direction of the occasional usefulness of ‘enhanced interrogation’.
What happens if the Democrats are tagged with refusing to ever use it, and a disaster happens? The first question will be “Why was there a failure of intelligence?”
What some of you may be failing to notice is that bit by bit Obama is yielding to the Bush direction in the very difficult questions about the War on Terror. There is FISA, there are military tribunals, there is continued operation of Guantanamo, there is continued action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere. A naif might say that maybe the Bush Administration wasn’t so wrong after all, or that the CIA and the armed forces have something with which to blackmail Obama. On these key foreign policy measures, Obama is following in the path of Bush and Cheney. You may gnash your teeth, but it is the truth.
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May 18th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Free advice, Matt: find a copy editor. Your tendency to pile clause on clause (”And more to the point, it gets us refocused on the real issue here, which is not about what briefings were or were not given to Congress but about the underlying activity that was the subject of the briefings.”) makes your longer-form writing extremely difficult to read, at least for me.
You’re complaining about run-on sentences? How about we start at the beginning, like spelling (it’s Stephen Hayes, not Steven). Matthew needs to learn to walk before he competes in the triathalon.
In any case, I don’t think that most liberal commentators – and even some conservatives – really understand the point with the push against Pelosi. The right doesn’t want the (non-)torture debate to go away. We think we’re winning it. Everybody knows – even Matthew! – that the public actually supports our position on the matter. Even if what the Bush Administration approved was in fact torture (and it wasn’t), the public approves of pouring some water on the head of a terrorist that killed 3,000 Americans. The point about Pelosi shows that even left-wing Democrats approved of pouring water on terrorists heads, a few years ago. So Pelosi not only shows that what the Bushies did was eminently reasonable (how can it be unreasonable if even Pelosi approved?), but that the Democrats now are just playing politics with national security by disapproving of something they approved of a few years ago.
This whole episode reinforces a few main themes: the Republicans are the tough guys when it comes to terrorism, and the Democrats are wusses who don’t know what they are doing. And that the Republicans have principles when it comes to national security, whereas the Democrats are so craven that they will take one position on a national seciryt matter in private and another in public. This is a win-win situation for Republicans.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Ha ha. Complain about a typo, and it’s inevitable that you’ll have a typo, such as failing to properly close a tag. Argh.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
You know Obama has to release those memos eventually, or suffer the continued hammer blows of questions about why he won’t release them. And if he refuses, they’ll get leaked. Obama, after a whole month of ‘agonizing’ deliberation, opened this Pandora’s Box. Why he deliberated so long, I suspect, is that somewhere an instinct was warning him. Releasing them is the act of a candidate, though, and not of a President. Folks, he blew it.
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May 18th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Al, 12. Oh, my. That comment is eloquent, insightful and persuasive. Bring it ON!
Oh, yes, Sign the 180. Oops, I mean, Release the Cheney Memos.
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May 18th, 2009 at 10:30 am
how sweet! al has a new friend. and a fan!
now you and mark marano the swift-boat shill, writing here as ‘kim’, can get together for play-dates all the time. that will make it less lonely for you both.
and by being each others’ bestest friends forever, you let the whole world know just how stupid you both are!
May 18th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Great, it appears all the partisans think they are “winning” the public relations battle. Which is good for those of us who simply want this process continued all the way to its logical end, meaning with a properly-instructed jury considering evidence of crimes.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Al, if you really think you guys are winning the debate on torture, then why do you use a ridiculous Orwellian euphemism when referring to water boarding? Water boarding is “pouring water on terrorists (sic) heads” just as much as cutting someone with a knife is “touching their skin with a piece of metal.”
And this is rich: “how can it be unreasonable if even Pelosi approved?” Republicans surely regard Nancy Pelosi as some sort of infallible Christ-like figure, but I don’t know of anyone on the left who sees her that way. She undoubtedly approves of all kinds of things I disagree with and even find despicable. If, in fact, she “approved” of torture (and that is far from a proven fact) then she should face some sort of consequence for this–albeit a lesser consequence than those who actually ordered the torture and implemented a psuedo-legalistic regime under which it could be carried out.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:34 am
thank you, al, for confirming that you are a sociopath and we need never pay you the slightest attention again.
more seriously – since who would take a torture-lover seriously – we can only hope it works out that we get a truth commission out of this: any port in a storm.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
What happens if the Democrats are tagged with refusing to ever use it, and a disaster happens? The first question will be “Why was there a failure of intelligence?”
And if Democrats cave on this issue, the Republicans will suddenly discover the principle that national security issues are too important to be used as political footballs? Please. No potential Reichstag fire will be left unexploited by the right, regardless of what policies Obama adopts or doesn’t adopt. They even tried to attack Democrats over an attack that occurred during a *Republican* administration!
Of course, if Obama hires professionals using methods proven to work, and then pays attention to them, the chance of a disaster happening is much lower than it was under someone like Bush. But still not zero.
What some of you may be failing to notice is that bit by bit Obama is yielding to the Bush direction in the very difficult questions about the War on Terror.
Considering that’s exactly what half the blogosphere is up in arms about, I don’t see how you can say anyone is failing to notice it. Obama works for us – that’s what democracy means – and this is not the agenda we hired him to implement. Or in other words, what kid bitzer said @10.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:57 am
ReGARDING DTM’S COMMENT # 17 and SLC ‘S COMMENT # 7
DTM raises an interisting point.Too much of this debate is about public relations and opinion polls. I would urge everyone to read the excellent link that SLC was kind enough to provide in comment # 7.It is about the ineffectiveness of torture.
If someone sincerly thinks that torture works ,i will respectfully disagree and try to prove them wrong. But to discuss this kind of important issue in terms of public relations and whose more popular, ect. is innapropriate at best.
ONCE again thank you to DTM and SLC for their spot on comments ,and to SLC for that informative link.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:58 am
[...] Pelosi, politics, torture, wordpress-political-blogs by Marc In the details of Yglesias’s most recent column on Pelosi and truth commissions he uncovers (possibly unwittingly) a big blind spot in conservative [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am
And shooting somebody is ‘throwing a little metal ball at somebody,’ and bombing someone is ’setting off a firecracker nearby’.
The point, though, is that I really, really enthusiastically encourage right wingers to maintain their currently winning PR campaign for torture and trying to pin it on ‘left wing Democrats’ for ‘approving’ it all.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:34 am
It’s probably already been invoked in a comment thread here, but as long as there is still “kim” and his pro-torture sociopathic ilk squealing “Pelosi!” like the swine they are, it remains appropriate. The Editors:
Because yes, if anyone should be taken down for ordering the torture of captives in order to obtain false intelligence, it’s the House minority leader at the time, not the people who actually ordered the torture of captives in order to obtain false intelligence. Sheesh, it’s like the Star Trek mirror universe, only with dull-witted demagogues and more torture.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Al, you are certainly carrying the “Republicans are principled in National Security” flag.
Several intelligence officers who participated in actual interrogations and military officials familiar with what was done have gone on record stating that the White House ordered the interrogations to result in “confessions” of Al-Queda being in a direct alliance with Iraq. We can play cutsie with semantics about “enhanced interrogation” and play nonsensical hypotheticals about “ticking time bombs”,but that is missing the key allegation. It appears that the previous administration in their zeal to pursue an invasion of Iraq apparently engaged in extra-legal interrogation programs to reverse engineer a “smoking gun”.
It reminds me of how the debate about the “falling dominos” in Southeast Asia eventually obscured the whole Gulf of Tonkin thing.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:57 am
A criminal trial would be a more reliable forum for gathering and testing evidence, and if the Republicans were smart, which they are not, they would realize this. Either that, or the Republicans who are closed to the facts don’t want the evidence tested in open court.
As for Obama, he may not want certain facts to be entered as evidence in open court, either, and a criminal trial is a process which is far more difficult to stage manage. However, I don’t think it is outlandish to speculate that he sees Pelosi as a large liabilty in the midterm elections, and would glady allow her to sacrificed, if see were implicated during some sort of official inquiry. Conversely, Republicans may think they are better served with a Pelosi continuting to serve as Speaker, after her credibility is completely trashed.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I think that it should be stressed that no one is saying that terrorists are good people who shoud be coddled. MR YGLESIAS is as liberal as you can get. And even he is not suggesting that terrorist get HBO on demand in their prison cells.
All I ,and others , are saying is
1. Make sure that they actually are terrorists .And not some poor slob that was turned in for the bounty money,or so some guy could run off with his wife while he rotted in jail.
and
2 . Use interagation methods that actually work ,to get useful information, not confessions.If you tortured me long enough i would confess to being a terrorist. But i could give you no useful information since i am not a terrrorist.
If I was in a jail cell with a terrorist would i beat his ass.
I hate to admit it ,but hell yes! I would kick their ass to get back at them for all the people that they murdered on 9/11.
But would that get us any usefull information . NO. Would it make me feel better. No, because i would have lowered myself to their level. Would it bring any of the people who died on 9/11back to life. Sadly no.
When people respond to polls they are expressing their disust with terrorist, and their desire to see them punished.
But if you say which method of innterogation should be used .torture which does not work, or legal methods that do work. Which one do you think that they would pick.
Once again i would urge everyone to read the excellent link that SLC provided in comment # 7
May 18th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
As a lifetime conservative and a Republican since age 18, I will admit that I am somewhat perturbed and torn on the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques issue. While we, and I personally as a soldier, have not enjoyed seeing the various acts of torture/videotaped and internet distributed murder scenes involving any US citizens, I also would not wish to completely tie the hands of our intelligence community. If, moving forward, we need to clarify the language a bit more to make sure that no acts would be committed, which the world–and I guess more importantly, our US media–would construe as torture, than so be it. But let us not forget that we are up against networks of people who do NOT operate under the same code of ethics or morals that we do.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
we are up against networks of people who do NOT operate under the same code of ethics or morals that we do.
So? The point of interrogation is to get information out of someone, not to punish them because they “deserve it.”
May 18th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
“But let us not forget that we are up against networks of people who do NOT operate under the same code of ethics or morals that we do.”
I don’t quite understand your point, Miguel. Why are the ethics or morals of our adversaries relevant?
May 18th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I have no problem with Pelosi getting scrutinized. And punished. Torture in my name? No way. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the head of the CIA, the people who did the torturing, the generals, ALL the legislators who stood mute. They deserve punishment. And the media figures who excused torture — anathema. The posters who excuse it? Full names and exposure.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Because we should only hold ourselves to being slightly more ethical and more moral than our worst adversaries.
Our behavior should be conditioned upon nothing more than our opinion of the enemy or the accused: If we think we are dealing with noble sorts, then perhaps we should act nobly; and if we think we are dealing with beasts, then we should act beastly.
Why would anyone insist on upholding standards for oneself based upon basic reasoning and moral judgment, rather than just looking around and seeing what people think of the enemy or the accused?
May 18th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Or not, apparently 41% of Americans believe the CIA over Pelosi.
I mean, I understand a little cynicism about politicians here, but this is the CIA we’re talking about here. They’re not really supposed to be liked!
May 18th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Or not, apparently 41% of Americans believe the CIA over Pelosi.
More proof we’ve all died and are in Hell.
-You’ve got to believe us. We told her that we were torturing.
-Well, that’s enough for me. I sure believe you guys. Who’d make up a story like that?!
May 18th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
While we, and I personally as a soldier, have not enjoyed seeing the various acts of torture/videotaped and internet distributed murder scenes involving any US citizens, I also would not wish to completely tie the hands of our intelligence community.
Somehow our intelligence community managed to do quite well from WWII through the Cold War and all the way up to 2002 without using torture. It is in fact using torture that actually harms an intelligence service, since torture just makes the tortured say whatever he thinks the torturers want to hear.
If, moving forward, we need to clarify the language a bit more to make sure that no acts would be committed, which the world–and I guess more importantly, our US media–would construe as torture, than so be it.
The language is already perfectly clarified. It wasn’t that the Bush regime was confused by the clear language outlawing torture — it was just that they chose to ignore the law.
But let us not forget that we are up against networks of people who do NOT operate under the same code of ethics or morals that we do.
Unlike in previous conflicts with foes such as the Nazis, the Imperial Japanese Red Army, the Soviets, the North Korean and Chinese Communists and the VC, who all shared our code of ethics and morals…..
Unfortunately, in future conflicts some foe of ours is going to be able to tell its people “let us not forget that we are up against Americans who do NOT operate under the same code of ethics or morals that we do, because Americans torture and abuse their prisoners and we don’t.”
May 18th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
[L]et us not forget that we are up against networks of people who do NOT operate under the same code of ethics or morals that we do.
That’s (supposed to be) the difference between us and them: we are civilized, we follow the rules. That’s why we’re the “good guys” and they’re the “bad guys”. If we act the same way they do, what does that make us…?
May 18th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
That’s a good point from the Daily Beast column, but there’s another, potentially more important, way that this gambit is a disaster for the pro-torture Republicans.
They just completely and of their own volition forfeited the argument that torture investigations are a “partisan witch hunt.” Even though it’s completely bogus, the argument coming from Republicans that Nancy Pelosi is complicit in the Bush administration’s torture crimes now makes it impossible to cast the desire for a full accounting as an act of partisan payback.
Ahem. “Partisan witch hunt? Oh, heavens no! You guys raised some important questions about Nancy Pelosi, and I agree, we need to get to the bottom of this. Let the partisan chips fall where they may. Democrat or Republican, we need to know whose hands are dirty.”
Thanks, geniuses! This is the most brilliant political maneuver since you spent the two months before the presidential election informing the electorate that your opponent wants to “spread the wealth.” On behalf of torture opponents everywhere, let me express my enduring gratitude.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Let’s think back to the post-9/11 era. When George Bush was enjoying huge popularity, and his anti-terror policies were hugely popular, did the Republicans work hard to highlight the Democratic support for their W.o.T. policies in order to make them seem reasonable? Or did they use them as wedge issues, playing down Democratic support, in order to make support for tough anti-terror policies appear to be specifically a Republican position, and cast Democrats as weak-kneed, effete appeasers, who didn’t realize that sometimes you have to stand up and fight evil?
The answer, of course, is the latter. Not only did the Republicans cast every dispute over a terrorism-related question as tough Republicans vs. weak, even terrorist-sympathizing, Democrats, but they ginned up controversies where none existed for the sole purpose of playing wedge politics with them.
And now they’re doing exactly the opposite – taking a policy that is clearly, solely a Republican policy and trying their darnedest to make it look like the Democrats were in on it, too.
That’s not how Republicans who are genuinely confident that the public supports them play things. This Pelosi gambit is clear evidence that they know they’re on shaky ground.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
One thing the right wing lunatics weren’t counting on, which is-Nancy Pelosi is not all that terribly popular amongst the left, either. If they think we’re going to back down from this fight to save her ass, they are gravely mistaken.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Yeah, I’m perfectly willing to have her SF-area seat flip to Republican. Though “Speaker Hoyer” doesn’t exactly make me break out the confetti. It would be nice if this managed to discredit the whole Republican accommodationist cabal.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
As a 25 year Democrat, I’ll comfortably say that if Pelosi has to take one on the chin so that we get a full truth commission, so be it.
I am one of the D’s who is uncomfortable with Obama’s “move forward” stance. It’s denial to move forward without a decent accounting of what went wrong.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Good Lord People! Can you not see the classic Rope-A-Dope strategy here? This President does not do anything without first completely thinking through all the different possibilities out.
This is a perfect Twofer for him. He has brilliantly let the Repuiblicain party and Nancy Pelosi to set themselves and herself up to take the fall.
Understand, Nancy Pelosi is just as much an obstical to this President’s agenda as the Republicans are. Remember how she famously stated to the then President Elect Obama that he HAD to go through her first before office talking to any of the Democratic Congressmen? And notice how the Administration is letting her twist in the wind.
I mean really, Now you have The Democratic Party of the house and Senate, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Cheney and the National REPUBLICAN party calling for a Truth Commission. I would call that Bipartainship, wouldn’t you? But be careful what you wish for you might get it. The Republicans are so ready to drive a dagger into Pelosi they are forgetting they that they are standing between her and that dagger.
President Obama is the master at this Rop-A-Dope game. He did it to the Clintons, He did it to McCain, He did it to Limbaugh and now he is doing it to both Cheney and the Republicans and yes, to Nancy Pelosi.
Also watch, he doing the same thing to the car companies as well. Tomorrow the Adminstration will announce new CAFE standards for furture cars. And guess what, The new average is 42 MPG by 2016, and not 35 MPG by 2020 as previously stated. And the car companies have all signed off on it without any fight. Why? They asked and received tax payer bailout money.
The President is a smart man. He is paying for the LONG HAUL here, and everyone who underestimates him, they do so at their own peril.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
[...] centered on trying to suck the majority leaders in with them is a day closer to a truth commission. Yglesias makes the by-now obvious point: …in their zeal to score a tactical win, the right has made a truth commission more likely [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Tired of this. As ridiculous as the criticaljournal blog. Isn’t it time for the self-loathing to end?
May 18th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
The logic is flawed. You assume the House or Senate would not hold hearings is Obama wasn’t in favor of them. This is incorrect.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
@42 Victor: “The President is a smart man. He is paying for the LONG HAUL here, and everyone who underestimates him, they do so at their own peril.”
Exactly. Ditto the whole comment.
I would only add he has played the Left beautifully. The Left has done all his heavy lifting on this issue. They actually thought he wanted to “move forward.” Say what! Do you think Obabm is some bumbling simpleton who needed to cheat to get out of the third grade?
Now Pelosi, willingly or not, is the spearpoint of his brilliantly orchestrated and hopefully fatal attack on the Republican Party.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I don’t know if I buy the Obama-as-puppet-master narrative.
It’s probably more accurate to say he’s just someone with exceptional foresight who plays his hand very well.
This isn’t all going according to some master plan. Obama is reacting and muddling through like everybody else in DC. He’s just particularly good at it.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Good post.
It’s my opinion that Obama should welcome the “back-ward” developments, also. He has an opportunity to blacken the name of the Republican elites in such a way that could enable democrats to be able to pass their agenda unhindered for years.
It’s also inevitable that all of it will eventually come out anyway. Maybe Obama’s team knows this and is just picking the time. Hopefully.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:20 am
@47 joe from Lowell “I don’t know if I buy the Obama-as-puppet-master narrative.”
Obama is no puppet-master. He has to do plenty of muddling and reacting. But I believe he formulated a strategic vision on Torture-gate more than a year ago. He would have been a fool not to.
This scandal is nothing like Watergate. This baby is has been out in the open for years. Once there was a Democratic President, the possibility of a Peggy Noonan response, the “just keep walking” response, was out the window.
Obama knows this. We all know this. It all comes down to how you decide to play it.
I think he is playing it the same way most of us on the Left would play if we were in his situation; try to wreck the opposition party while pretending that is the last thing you want to do.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:52 am
[...] Yglesias thinks the evil Cheneyite plan to humiliate Pelosi will fail, because insisting on a Truth Commission will result in a Truth Commission, and it’s only fair that people who have already admitted they ordered waterboarding to save Americans will look worse than the people who just went along with it and then denounced it and lied about it. This is the kind of thinking you get when you hire someone to do your political deep thinking who can’t remember the Reagan admin and was still in high school in the Clinton admin. And apparently doesn’t know his Uncle Remus. Happy 29th, Matty! [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Maybe I’m missing something, but since this happened way the hell back in 2002 when Democrats were in the minority, do we when really care “What did she know and when did she know it?” Trying to get the bottom of this will inevitably reveal all other things about Republicans and the Bush administration at the time. Basically, what Matt said will happen. Great for us. But is there really anything else? Its not like she committed a crime, right?
May 19th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Oh, boy, see Pincus’s WaPo latest from his leakers in the CIA. They might just decide to straighten out the record about Joe Wilson if the Democrats keep banging the drum about being lied into war.
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May 19th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
the Democrats are so craven that they will take one position on a national seciryt matter in private and another in public. This is a win-win situation for Republicans.
Al
I think it also reinforce a negative that virtually all americans despise in politicians which is letting shit role down hill AND punishing people acting in good faith. Going after participants for a practice the very same politician green lighted (or did nothig to prevent) is low-life scum territory.
Which is why the left is straining now trying to dream up the bad motive that allows them to bypass their own complicit involvement clinging onto crazy Wilkerson WMD’s, whose story has now evolved into Seymour Hersh like territory.
It’s actually a sketchy strategy. How long can the Democrats campaign on they premise they are constantly duped because are just too dumb and naive to know until it’s too late when it comes to all the important issues of security?
May 19th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Don’t waste your time with anything “Nuremberg” .. afterall they were, in fact, one of those “evil” military tribunals.
Keep it pure.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Consider the two sides.
offical Dem position: waterboarding=torture, so prosecute those who enabled waterboarding but not those who did it.
Offical GOP position: waterboarding was used and does not qualify as torture.
Inherent in the Dem position is guilt if they knew in 2002/2003 and did nothing. That’s Pelosi’s exact position, and that of other senior members of Congress who are not so much in the crosshairs. If its torture now, it was torture then. If anyone goes down, Pelosi and many Dem higher ups (and GOPers too) must go down too for their complicitness.
Inherent in the GOP position is, if we’re wrong on the torture question, we go down with the top Dems who also knew and did nothing.
Given a choice, sentient beings would choose the GOP position. That a majority of the citizens agree that waterboarding hardcore terrorists is OK (if recent polling is to be believed) is just icing for GOPers. That’s why they won’t let the issue go away. Given the Dem’s situational ethics on matters of national security, that seems just desserts.
But senior members of Congress have a good survival instinct, so there won’t be any investigations beyond the media trial that’s just begun. If you’re really upset about it, vote them out.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
#51 Adrock: If in fact one accepts Pelosi’s proposition that waterboarding=torture, then yes, she did commit a crime. She has oversight, was informed in her oversight capacity that weterboarding was being used, and did nothing. She is as guilty as those who poured water up Khalid’s nose; the operative law makes NO distinction. That’s why she panicked and said the CIA lied to her. If she knew, she is convicted by her own words.
Matt Y. is a bit of a muddled thinker today if he considers that to be changing the subject from Bush to Pelosi.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
[...] as Matthew Yglesias points out, this has the exact opposite effect of what was [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Ah, DTM. It’ll come down to intent, and the intent was to obtain information, not cause serious mental or physical harm. Holder has contradicted himself and the department on the issue.
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May 20th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Ah, DTM. It’ll come down to intent, and the intent was to obtain information, not cause serious mental or physical harm.
Ah, kim. So it’s not torture if I crush your right knee in a vise in order to get you to tell me where you hid my wallet?
After all, my intent is just to obtain information.