If I’m reading him correctly, retired Navy Seal Matthew Heidt is less than thrilled with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s recent rhetorical flourishes on the floor of the Senate:
I want Durbin’s job, and I want it now. I’ll be damned if a US Senator is going to get away with comparing my comrades to the Gestapo, or Stalin’s thugs. To the people of the Great State of Illinois, none of you have a hair on you’re a$$ if you do not demand a recall of this piece of trash. This guy isn’t some benchwarmer nutjob either, he is in the Democratic leadership and as such he speaks for the rest of the 44 Senators in his caucus. If you are a Democrat US Senator and you do not have a statement of categorical disavowal of Durbin’s remarks and a plea for him to recant and apologize for them released to the press by close of business today, you are wrong. Barack Obama should be burning Durbin in effigy in the streets of Chicago this weekend. It’s time to step up Senator and give your “colleague†his medicine.
Strong stuff. But isn’t calling for Durbin’s job a form of hate speech? WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF QUESTIONS?
Michelle Malkin—herself a notoriously filthy jingoist—has a comprehensive roundup of Durbin reaction.
For a representative “progressivist” take on Durbin’s characterization of US soldiers as Nazis whose actions are analogous to those of Stalin and Pol Pot—try Jesse Taylor from Pandagon, who has never met a dubious statement from one of his own that he won’t try desperately to finesse and justify:
[…] honestly, I’d rather deal with crippling bodily pain than have to read another goddamn blog post on how Dick Durbin hates America because he dared point out that countries doing bad shit is bad. It’s all liberal moral relativism, you know, failing to excuse our misdeeds because we aren’t them. The terrorist generator keeps on churning (churning!), and for that, I say thank you Dick Durbin.
I too, hate America enough that I want to see it stop destroying its own credibility. (I’m reflexively hateful, but I’m also not that bright, being on the left and all.)
You see? All Senator Dick was really doing was showing his love of country! And, dissent being the highest form of patriotism, it follows that the more vicious and speculative the dissent, the more fervent and genuine the patriotism. Which means that Durbin’s comparing Gitmo soldiers to the murderers of a combined 30 some-odd million civilians? One of the single greatest expressions of patriotism EVER!
And for that, Jesse is proud—defiantly so!—to support a man like Senator Dick, who (unlike some wannabe America patriots who claim to love this country by refusing to equate it with modern history’s greatest mass murderers) has the balls to show his love of country by pointing out just how fucking evil it really is.
Call it tough love. Because, y’know—spare the rod and all that…
****
update: heh.
Obviously you are all just jealous of the Senator’s obvious and open patriotism.
And don’t forget that Tom Delay should be locked up for something or another.
Neither of my Dem (dim?) senators had any thoughts about his remarks when I talked to their offices. Is that what you’d call silent assent?
Because of the “HYPOCRISY”!
What is happening to my party? Our leaders are clearly turning anti-american or refuse to rebuke those that are. If I understand the speeches, the foe is not the terrorists or Bin Ladin but rather Bush, Delay and Cheney (and Rove, the evil mastermind behind it all).
Glad I voted for Bush even if he is a republican.
Someday I will be able to go back to my party. Or maybe work to change the republican’s stand on certain issues instead.
It is so depressing to listen to my side’s spewing such nonsense. Do they not understand that this sort of speech helps those that want to see American defeated, ruined, extinct?
zip
Yeah, I’ve been reading Froggy from his first post. He is dead-on right about this.
You unsophisticated rightwingers just need to learn our nuanced doubletalk.
DISSENT IS PATRIOTISM
TREASON IS HEROISM
FREEDOM IS TERRORISM
All it would take to quiet Dick Durbin et al down about the atrocities would be for the soldiers in question to wear blue helmets.
Ummm, no. He could argue that Gitmo should be closed, call for more lawyers to represent prisoners, or call for changes. That would fall under the category of patriotic and seeking to prevent America from destroying its own image. It would be hard to argue against that. Instead, Durbin is doing Al-Jazeera’s work for them. Millions of people died in the gulags, in pol pot’s regime, and in Hitler’s death camp. We’re talking 10^6. That’s roughly the number of seconds in four months. If names of people who died in Hitler’s death camps were read once a second, the list would take three years to finish. Guantanamo Bay has problems. Maybe it should be closed. I’m not opposed to the idea. It has major ethical issues that need to be worked out. However, contemplate the order of magnitude between: no-one dying at guantanamo, and a name once a second for three years, and make that comparison again.
I keep having flashbacks of a screaming little Cuban boy staring in terror down the barrel of an M-16 in the hands of an INS agent who just illegally kicked down the door.
The sad thing is, Durbin is here to stay. No way my yellow dog Democratic neighbors in Chicago will turn him out.
Moreover, the Illinois state Republican party is in uitter disarray, so it’s unlikely they’ll come up with someone who can capture enough suburban votes to match with downstate voters, and toss either Durbin or Obama (the Black Jacques Chirac, and the more serious long-term threat) out on their ears.
Sad to say, but Illinois is now as embarrassing as Massachussetts and Vermont in terms of domestic politics. Well, wait – we’re far more corrupt, so yep, we’re the most embarrassing, yes indeedy.
That t’wernt no M-16, son. It was a Heckler & Koch MP5. Which makes it all better. Don’t it?
Actually, it’s 10^7, but who’s counting? Certainly not DICK.
Sen. “The Dick” (D)urbin, the #2 Senate (D)emocrat, explained that in his remarks comparing the US Military to Nazis he was in fact NOT comparing the US Military to Nazis so he wasn’t going to apologize for comparing the US Military to Nazis just because he was comparing the US Military to Nazis.
And he isn’t sorry… Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah…
Fun with Dick and Jane: Jane Fonda and Durban the Dick are having lunch and talking about:
A Nazis.
B. Ghengis Khan’s hordes
C. The American Military
D. All of the above.
**EXCLUSIVE**
**MUST CREDIT PHINN**
WAKE UP PEOPLE! THIS DURBIN FLAP IS JUST A RUSE TO DISTRACT US FROM THE DOWNING STREET MEMO!!!
(Because, you know, nothing says “smoking gun” like the subjective, second-hand opinion of a third-rate bureaucrat’s meeting with a bunch of other mid-level bureaucrats, especially when that opinion parrots the opinion expressed in some arch-leftist newspaper editorial that appeared a couple of days earlier.)
You know, I am beginning to regret being so polite in my constituent e-mail to Senator Durbin…
P.S. An Instalanche AIN’T GOT NOTHIN’ ON A LINK FROM PW!
Someone was pointing out that Guantanamo Bay is a freakin’ Club Med vacation compared to the Cook County jail in Durbin’s own state.
Someone has just started http://www.blogsforcensure.blogspot.com. The guy is looking to make it a group blog. If you’re interested….
I heard about it on the radio show of your MASTER and mine, Huge Hewitt.
People in jail usually don’t want to be there. They often show their displeasure by disobeying rules. When the guards ase constrained in what they can do to punish the rule breakers, the prisoners go right up to the line to taunt the guards.
Turning temperature up or down, refusing bathroom breaks or limiting freedom of movement seem modest punishment.
Durbin is one of those folk who cannot tell the difference between cutting off a child’s allowance and cutting off his hand.
Unfortunately, since Jeff misspelled “genuine” in this post, his arugment is exploded and all the execretion that was to descend upon Sen. Durbin must fall on Jeff’s head instead.
/usenet flaming protocols
…and, since I misspelled “argument”, there goes my argument!
Turing = result, as in PIMF, PIMF, PIMF, but noooo, and this is the result.
…just wondering what Howard Dean has to say about Dick Durbin’s remarks. Maybe he screamed.