“By no later than the summer of 2004..."

[babylonsister]

“By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.”

snip//

In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. Bybee’s memo was written the week after the then-secret (and subsequently leaked) “Downing Street memo,” in which the head of British intelligence informed Tony Blair that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” A month after Bybee’s memo, on Sept. 8, 2002, Cheney would make his infamous appearance on “Meet the Press,” hyping both Saddam’s W.M.D.s and the “number of contacts over the years” between Al Qaeda and Iraq. If only 9/11 could somehow be pinned on Iraq, the case for war would be a slamdunk.

more, here, elegant, brilliant...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

[TahitiNut]

1. I finally got around to reading his "The Greatest Story Ever Sold"

VERY well-written narrative of the 2002-2005 years of deceit and deception. Frank Rich is a articulate and clear voice of reason. This guy is NOT a sell-out.

Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks.

And that's the TRUTH!

[babylonsister]

3. I love Frank Rich, and I think this is spot on....

Torture is the polar opposite of freedom. It is the banishment of all freedom from a human body and soul, insofar as that is possible. As human beings, we all inhabit bodies and have minds, souls, and reflexes that are designed in part to protect those bodies: to resist or flinch from pain, to protect the psyche from disintegration, and to maintain a sense of selfhood that is the basis for the concept of personal liberty. What torture does is use these involuntary, self-protective, self-defining resources of human beings against the integrity of the human being himself. It takes what is most involuntary in a person and uses it to break that person's will. It takes what is animal in us and deploys it against what makes us human.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x443397

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. A friend of mine went to camp with him,

both little Jewish boys at camp in the Catskills in the fifties, and my friend - well, we're not friends any more - also became a writer. He was a very good one, and then he and his wife went off the rightwingnut deep end. He even ended up writing a bestseller about his "conversion," and one of the passages in it - within the chapter in which he decried Roe v. Wade as "victimizing and infantilizing (?) women," he mentioned that his wife - who had been my writing partner when we wrote for TV and before she went insane - had had two abortions, which she deeply regretted.

I immediately called him, and said, "Harry, Priscilla had five abortions, not two. Remember when we talked about that?"

And he - having become a weasel and a liar - said, "It says 'two'? That's a typo."

Yeah, right.

Alas, we fell out, quietly, when they decided my leftwing politics were all wrong. This was during Clinton's first term. I'm godmother to their son, who grew up to be a complete slacker, working as a bartender every now and tend, a totally self-involved young man who once had great potential.

And they HATE Frank Rich because - I love this - his first wife was in labor, and he went to the theater (he was the Drama Critic for the Times) while she was in labor. He got back in time for the baby's birth, but Harry and Priscilla decided he was a horrible man and just a total waste of life.

Harry's career has tanked, and Frank Rich is - well, he's FRANK FUCKING RICH! And he's terrific.

And every time he does another TV show or presents another bit of genius like he does almost every week, I think of my former friends, and I rejoice.....................................

[babylonsister]

9. he's FRANK FUCKING RICH! And he's terrific.

No Kidding! He's great because he's honest. I love him!

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Sounds like you are better off without friends like that

I have a friend from college like that. Very liberal in his 20s and then voted for Reagan in 1980. Don't see him much anymore but ran into him right after I got back from Camp Casey a few years ago. He asked what I had been doing and I mentioned I had just got back from Crawford, TX and he just shook his head and made a quick exit. Later that year when he and his wife had their annual party for the crowd we went to college with, my hubby and I were not invited for the first time in 30 years. Hubby said "good riddance, I never liked him anyway". LOL

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Interesting Final Paragraph

"President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law."

I'm proud of my fellow high-strung travelers!

[babylonsister]

4. Leave it to you, Manny, but yes, it's a fact.

By acknowledging the grotesque past by releasing memos and pictures, what do you think this president is trying to suppress?

[MannyGoldstein]

5. He's Trying To Supress Prosecution.

Giving a pass to someone for smoking a joint is a laughable concept to Obama.

But he's trying to give a pass to war crimes. No good can come of such a shredding of our Constitution and international treaties. I guess fanatics like Frank Rich and me will have to watch this play out - along with further warrentless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and suspension of habeas corpus.

[babylonsister]

7. Damn. You really are full of poop. Too bad; I have been giving you

the benefit of the doubt. No doubt now.

You are flamebait in the worst way, and you are an ass. Very clear now. Pass to war crimes???!! Moran!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

8. No, he's not ...............

You're missing the obvious. It's right under your nose, but you're missing it.

By releasing all this material, Obama is making it possible for the proper people to take this out of his hands, leaving it looking like it's just a matter of the law being followed. But, the instigation for that next step will not be laid on the White House doorstep. He's simply ordering the material released.

Very slick. Brilliant .....

[MannyGoldstein]

10. Except Obama's Proxy Last Sunday Said There'd be No Prosecutions

On Monday that was altered to "only the torturers themselves will not be prosecuted". And they're sticking to that line. Not easy to back off of it - what will they say, "we have new information? They already have confessions, for chrissakes! That Eric "I got Marc Rich a pardon because Clinton asked me to" Holder won't do his boss's bidding?

I'll put $50 on prosecutions never happening. Want to make some easy money?

[babylonsister]

12. You have gone from the primaries to just plain ugly, I see.

TOUGH SHIT, Manny.

This man is liked, whether you like it or not.

As for prosecutions, I will bet Holder takes the rule of law in his Democratic grasp and does something I want him to do.

But you will always have something to complain about.

I'm pretty damned happy with my president now.

Too bad you aren't.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. You're not listening, and, even worse,

you can't hear. Your preconceptions are getting in the way of the reality. Emanuel's comments were thoroughly discredited by Obama's actions, so why are you still paying any attention to them? You do need to open your mind and take it all that is now visible. If you're attentive and clever and can put things together, you'll see what is slowly - or not so slowly - evolving.

Thanks for the offer, but, after a lifetime as a lawyer in Washington, I still have enough ethics left not to take candy from a baby .....................

[MannyGoldstein]

14. To Which Charity Should I Send The $50 When You Win?

DLC? Obama's re-election fund? What's your pleasure?

In the unhappy event that I win (it's a bet I badly want to lose), I'd like your $50 sent to the Grameen Foundation.

So whad'ya say - do we help out a deserving charity?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

15. I can see why you're having trouble .........

You can't read......................

[MannyGoldstein]

20. I'm Surprised That You Wouldn't Want To Earn $50 For Your Favorite Charity

Easy money, no? And I make a good living, I can part with it.

[PerfectSage]

11. Well I was listening to RATM Bullet in your head when I started reading your post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_-QGNUYL5g&feature=related

Yeah the case for war was a "slamdunk" but the useless piece's of shit who procecuted it are going to go down in history as the most incompetent empire building imperialists ever. :rofl:

The gods love to punish the sin of hubris.

[babylonsister]

16. "The gods love to punish the sin of hubris. " From your brain...

I hope you are right.

[Senator]

17. I Don't Think That Danner Quote Is Really On The Mark

While it's certainly correct that the American intelligentsia/elite "had before them the basic narrative" -- and were (and still are) willfully refusing the deal with its reality, it's not really fair to imply that the public/electorate was so informed.

A particularly insidious aspect of our mainstream euphemedia is their M.O. of concealing/removing inconvenient realities from the public mind in a varieties of ways.

---

[malaise]

18. Well said Frank Rich

You nailed it.