Sunday, March 09, 2008

Obama and Clinton on 2082

As politics swirl around how Bush's veto of House 2082 will affect John McCain a bit of background is in order. 2082 was a bill that restricted presidential powers during exigent situations (also known as the waterboarding bill) by limiting interrogation methods.

McCain voted Nay, which was spun by the left as hypocrisy based on his previous insistence on adhering to the Army Field Manual for interrogations and his views on GTMO. But oddly, Hillary and Obama both failed to register a vote on the initial bill. Weird, since one would expect that would have been easy political pickins.

Bush's veto will be re-spun both in the lefty blogosphere and even from the MSM, but it'll be interesting to see how they react to Obama and Hillary's reaction this week after both failed to stand up and be counted on the initial bill.

It also might be worthwhile to flip back in time to the year 2002, when 9/11 was fresh on everyones' minds:
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
During that same time the buzz phrase was "connecting the dots", as in, Bush didn't. It's amazing to see where things stand now with the notion of an imminent threat gone from the public radar. For what it's worth, we're approaching the same time interval between the first and second WTC attacks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

People who stand opposed to aggressive defense demonstrate their ignorance of reality. The fact is, US interrogation techniques have generated useful intelligence, and this in turn has helped us to avoid subsequent attacks by Islamic bastards. Those who stand opposed to such programs present a clear and present danger to the safety of Americans, and the security of national sovereignty. The only amazing part of this is how such persons, including Pelosi, can believe our intelligence collection behavior is wrong after having taken a solemn oath to support and defend our way of life against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Democrats have to complain about something; it is obvious to Democrats that America is always wrong about nearly everything. On the other hand, it could be true that Democrats are simply idiots.

A.C. McCloud said...

Democrats have to complain about something; it is obvious to Democrats that America is always wrong about nearly everything. On the other hand, it could be true that Democrats are simply idiots.

I think many are surely idiots when it comes to national security, mainly because they live in a windmill world of shallow symbolism.