Bush Is Gonna Take His Iron Maiden and Go Home:
Here's how you know you've lost your war: Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King said this about detainee treatment legislation: "If we capture bin Laden tomorrow and we have to hold his head under water to find out when the next attack is going to happen, we ought to be able to do it." Let's put it this way: it's one thing to say that in a one-in-a-million Jack Bauer-esque situation, you'd probably break the law and a few fingers to get the info you need so the nuke doesn't go off. But it's another thing entirely to say that you wanna make it the law. King and the other right-wing Bush ball-lickers can't get enough of that presidential scrotum in their mouths.

We're in the midst of one of the most degrading debates in the history of the nation. Our goddamned President just spent the better part of an hour in a press conference today whining like a little bitch in the rain about losing his favorite squeaky toy: "If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules -- if they do not do that, the program's not going forward." That program, of course, would be the CIA interrogations of detainees and the trial of said detainees on secret evidence. Or one could say, "That shit that the Bush administration wants to do that makes us the moral equals of Torquemada or the Jacobins."

See, Bush kept calling the "interrogators," who in another time would have been called "torturers," kind names, like "professionals" and "decent citizens" who don't want to break the law. It's like trying to convince your wife to make it an open marriage so you can fuck your secretary without the guilt. In other words, Bush wants to ensure that the torturers and the torturer enablers (like, say, himself) are covered when that bad ol' world gets its Nuremberg-ish dander up.

Once again, Bush insisted on his own blind stupidity as a reason to give him anything he wants regarding the Geneva Conventions: "Common Article 3 says that, you know, There will be no outrages upon human dignity. It's like -- it's very vague. What does that mean, outrages upon human dignity? That's a statement that is wide open to interpretation." That's why Bush feels he can do whatever the fuck he wants no matter what his oath of office says. That whole "I will...to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" lacks clarity.

The most frightening aspect of the press conference was not the sight of the ostensible leader of the "free" world screeching and jabbing like a chicken that got into the meth stash. No, it was Bush's insistence that captured American soldiers are just a "hypothetical." Pressed by David Gregory on whether he could abide another country saying it was interpreting the Geneva Conventions however it wanted when it came to treatment of a hypothetical American, Bush simply said that it was okay by him if it was like what he wants: "I am saying that I would hope that they would adopt the same standards we adopt." GI, get ready for your waterboarding.

This is what we've been reduced to as a nation: arguing with each other over how far we can push our notions of "civilized" and still feel good about ourselves. How low can we go? 'Cause, see, once you take one step down on a ladder, the next rung is right there, and the bottom gets ever closer.

Note: Blogger burped earlier - and the Rude Pundit was gone for a couple of hours. As you can see, all is well now in this corner of Left Blogsylvania.