Stop Torturing Rush

[Joanne98]

Bob Cesca writes that:

Senator John Cornyn — “Big John” — is circulating a petition demanding that the Obama administration come clean about its “conspiracy” to smear Rush Limbaugh.

Seriously.

President Obama owes the American people an explanation.

His staff should apologize to the American people for supporting these tactics and diverting attention to the hard work that needs to be done to get America’s economy back on track.

Please join me in signing this petition and calling on the Obama White House to come clean on this matter.


For the full text of Cornyn’s letter about this “outrage,” go to Ben Smith’s blog at Politico. (The Cesca link comes via John Amato, who also made a “Leave Rush Alone!” video.)

If you’re keeping track, this builds on the “Suck-up to Rush” movement by the Republican party, the op-ed by John Boehner claiming Rush is being persecuted as a distraction, and the GOP talking point spread by Ari Fleischer and others that Obama has betrayed his words about a more mature approach to government - by responding to Rush Limbaugh.

This would also be the same John Cornyn who opposes a Truth Commission to look into torture and prisoner abuses by the Bush administration. NPR did a short piece on that, and the AP ran with Cornyn’s key sound bite: “The idea that this so-called Truth Commission would somehow resolve the good-faith disagreements … is just asking us to believe in the tooth fairy.”

Cornyn also issued a formal statement:

I oppose the creation of a so-called ‘truth commission’ because it is a redundant and politically divisive exercise that would distract the Executive, Congress, and the American people at a time when we should be focused on reinvigorating our economy and winning the war on terror. This roving, unaccountable inquisition into each and every grievance with a Bush Administration policy is a backward-looking proposition that is directly at odds with President Obama’s stated goals of unity and moving forward…

The proposed ‘truth commission’ would do little more than duplicate years of congressional oversight—not to mention the numerous Executive Branch investigations and related litigation, investigation and prosecution.

I believe that reasonable-minded proponents of this legislation will digest these facts and numbers and conclude, as I have, that Congress has done anything but shirk its responsibility to perform oversight over the past eight years…

President Obama has stated that he is more interested in looking forward than looking back. I would urge my colleagues on the other side to consider the precedent that would be set by creating such a commission—and what it implicitly says about the institutional competence of Congress. Now is not the time for government to waste more of taxpayers’ money by outsourcing a core congressional responsibility.

Read the full piece for fuller context. Cornyn’s fellow Republican Arlen Specter favors a Justice Department investigation and possible criminal prosecutions (Specter and other Republicans may be counting on the Democrats not having the stomach for it, as usual). Cornyn claims he supports Congress investigating, but that doesn’t square with his arguments that Congress provided adequate oversight of the Bush administration, his claims of “good faith,” and the notion that it’s important to ‘look forward and not back.’ Seriously, who exactly buys that Cornyn wants any further investigations at all, by anyone, or welcomes criminal charges for any and all guilty persons? The idea that any of the decisions made to torture, abuse and indefinitely detain prisoners were “good faith” disagreements is particularly laughable with the “ignore all warnings, proceed in secret” Bush administration approach described in Angler, The Dark Side and other sources.

Cornyn speaks of “distractions” and blames Obama regarding both Limbaugh and a Truth Commission. However, the bottom line is Conryn doesn’t want any of his buddies held accountable for torture, but wants Obama to pay a price for responding to Rush Limbaugh’s attacks. Cornyn has previously tried to defend water-boarding. Apparently, torture is not an “outrage,” but replying to Limbaugh’s partisan attacks is. That’s a pretty fucked-up moral compass.

Unsurprisingly, Cornyn doesn’t mention the “nine previously secret legal opinions” of the Bush administration which claimed they could suspend the Constitution and the president had all the unchecked, absolute powers of a dictator. He doesn’t say anything about the conclusions of the bipartisan Senate report on the abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody, which indicate that further investigation and probably criminal investigations should proceed.

http://blueherald.com/2009/03/stop-torturing-rush/