WOWZA! Now THAT'S an email Durbin MUST READ!

[LynnTheDem]

Gilliard did a spot-on take on Dick Durbin's apology;

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/06/dont-ask-for-my-help-again.html

But lookit this in the comments section!

I am deeply saddened Senator Durbin by your backing down in the face of the right-wing noise machine's 'criticism/cowardly spinning what is in the minds of many, your very on point remarks about what we should expect from our fighting forces and those who dictate those fighting forces actions.

I, and anyone with a rational bone in his or her body understood exactly what you meant with your comment. You said that when you read about that account, it sounded so off-the-charts for what American soldiers would do that without knowing it was our forces, one would think it was a horrible repressive regime's doings.

But the right chose to spin it as you calling our soldiers SS troops or the KGB when you were calling for us to be better than we've been. Disturbingly, you seem to have let their pedal-to-the-metal obfuscation along with the "influential" Mayor Daley's yapping for treats from them sway you into making a--I'm sorry to say--callow and quite subservient mea culpa that didn't have to be given.

In your giving in to their assault, you let those who would hold this administration to task for misdeeds down. You showed them that one can not stand in the face of the administration and its flacks’ crying, screeching and bleating to drown out rightful questioning of policy. What's more, you give the right a scalp, a rallying cry that they cannot be stopped and that anything goes as all they have to do is make a big stink.

I felt quite proud of your courage in saying what needed to be said, but I am now ashamed of your behavior in the end. You were right, but you let those who were wrong win out because they threatened you. Because they were loud. Because people you need were influenced by them. I understand that politics is politics, but principle is principle and that trumps politics--every day of the week. We could have let Sen. Joseph McCarthy continue to run wild, destroying those who would dare question this country or even have a dissenting opinion. But Joseph Welch stood in the breech and took on the man AND the flawed policy. He did so publicly and won.

You could have been a modern-day Joseph Welch, fighting this country's morally flawed policy of condoning torture. But sir, you backed down instead. You could have been a Welch...instead of a welch-er.

And no one will remember the salience of exactly what you said, just that you tearfully ran away from your words--never mind if they were right. They will look wrong in that you apologized for them.

I truly expected better of you. I'm saddened to have been so wrong.

Sincerely,
Xxxxx Xxxxxx

[Sydnie]

1. What everyone seems to be forgetting here

OUR soldiers did what he was talking about. They did those things. Not all of the soldiers at those facilities committed those crimes, but there are pictures and video of OUR soldiers doing these things.

There needs to be a clear picture drawn here, or the new evidence that is about to be released will be labeled as staged by the dems to prove their "Nazi" comments.

Soldiers have been tried for these actions. We are letting them forget that fact. We can't let that continue.

[LynnTheDem]

3. Actually just the opposite. He should NOT have apologized, BECAUSE

our troops WERE DOING those things. What he said troops were doing was from an FBI AGENT'S REPORT.

What "everyone here" is so damn mad about is Durbin APOLOGIZING.

[Sydnie]

6. That's exactly what I meant

was I not clear? I think he shouldn't have apologized at all. I think he should have gotten in their face and reminded them that military trials were happening and more photos are coming out of such behavior. Only this time, they are wearing OUR uniforms.

edited to add - I do understand why he apologized. I can imagine that he did it to take it off the table. Make it a non-issue. I understand it, but I wish he hadn't felt that he had to. I wish he had told them to stuff it by having a big blow up of Lyndie England pointing and laughing, or showing one of the videos that they have.

[LynnTheDem]

11. Gotcha.

I misunderstood you, and yep I agree with you.

Wait until the unreleased photos & video are released, there are going to be A LOT of very deeply upset & angry (and head over the toilet bowl sick) Americans when they see them.

[Cocoa]

2. Durbin's principles aren't in those comments

Durbin for sure will fight for his principles, including continuing to fight against the abuses of prisoners. I guarantee it.

[LynnTheDem]

5. And will he keep on apologizing, too?

That was an FBI agent's EYEWITNESS REPORT Durbin was reading from; now the vast majority of Americans DO NOT BELIEVE prisoners in Gitmo are being tortured or abused in any way.

They heard Durbin read things (FBI report) and they heard him APOLOGIZE.

To most Americans, that means Durbin's words were NOT TRUE.

And now 70% of Americans think Gitmo is just a swell place to keep all them murderin' raghead terraists.

THANKS for NOTHING, Durbin.

[Cocoa]

8. do you have any evidence that Durbin's apology affected any of that?

it's funny, the RW radio people are throwing around similar absurd, baseless claims about how his original comment is emboldening the enemy.

[LynnTheDem]

13. I'm not talking about "emboldening the enemy".

Jebus fucking Cripes!

Insinuating I'm a rightwingnut??? Me implying Durbin was "emboldening the enemy" my frigging arse! I'd already be IN GITMO, if you ever read most my posts!

I am talking about how AMERICANS will IGNORE THE FACT that we are TORTURING PEOPLE.

Most Americans heard Durbin say we're torturing POWS...and then him APOLOGIZING for his words.

Most Americans are STUPID! Sad, yes, but a FACT! Durbin's apology will keep a whole lot of Americans, such as the current 70%, thinking we're NOT torturing anyone in Gitmo.

WE ARE.

But the man who said so already apologized for saying so, so we can just forget all about it. THAT is what most Americans are gonna think in their stupid tiny little sheeple-brains.

[Cocoa]

15. no offense, but that strikes me as ridiculous

and to assert it with such conviction, without any evidence, is even more ridiculous.

The thing your assertion has in common with that of Savage, Rush, etc. is that you didn't just say that you didn't like what Durbin said, you instead went on to fortify your opinion with baseless claims, totally out of your imaginations, that it had some effect on other people. Savage screamed it in his listeners' ears, and you pepper your posts with capital letters.

[LynnTheDem]

16. Well we'll see won't we. Let's see how that 70% who approve of Gitmo

go; up or down.

Yes, I'm a rightwingnut. Can't you tell by my posts?

Read my lips...

[nonconformist]

17. On come on

When someone apologizes for their statements, the implication is that they realized they were in error and are sorry for it.

Correct or not, nuanced or not, that IS the implication.

[LynnTheDem]

18. And as most Americans are not newsnuts like we are, they will not

go find and read Durbin's original remarks; they will not go find and read Durbin's apology, and they will thus never see that what he said was an FBI agent's report, that he did NOT say our troops were Nazis, and that he did NOT apologize and thus wipe out his original words.

All they will hear is "Durbin said troops = Nazis, Durbin apologized".

Almost half this bloody stupid country still think Iraq did 911, for f*ck's sake!

Durbin handed ammo to the rightwingnut noise machine. WHEN will Dems learn not to do this!

[kevsand]

4. This comment is absurd on the face of it,

as is Gilliard's totally off the mark venom, and I have to wonder if either writer even read or saw Durbin's actual remarks. He most assuredly did NOT back down, and he did NOT retreat from his condemnation of the behavior at Gitmo. What he did was to apologize to anyone who misunderstood or misinterpreted his remarks, which is a very different thing from retracting them.

His very real pain was at the thought that anyone would believe that he would ever diminish the Holocaust or impugn the integrity of the vast majority of our men and women in uniform.

What a sad country we live in when the far right deliberately distorts Durbin's original remarks, and the far left deliberately distorts his explanation of them.

I am tired of the thoughtless knee-jerk holier than thou crap that never stops long enough to read the actual words or to think anything through. And I am as proud of Durbin as I have ever been. The fact that he bothers at all in the face of such mindless static from both sides speaks to a courage that most of us will never have or need.

My apologies in advance to anyone who misinterprets or misunderstands my anger, either deliberately or through carelessness.

[Cocoa]

7. yes, it takes courage to apologize

and it takes no courage at all to egg someone on to "fight," and call him a coward when he does something that can be spun as "caving." :toast:

[LynnTheDem]

9. Such subtle thinking is beyond most Americans. All they heard was

Durbin say things about POWs in Gitmo being abused (FBI report) and then Durbin APOLOGIZING. To most Americans that equates with Durbin lied abotu the abuse.

70%...SEVENTY FRIGGING PERCENT...of so-called "Americans" think Gitmo is great and swell and hey them bastards don't deserve any legal rights anyways.

The reason republicans win so much so often is because THEY KNOW the vast majority of AMERICANS ARE STUPID. You have to hit them hard over their heads to get them to pay attention to anything.

So now they've been hit hard over their heads; Durbin spoke about abuse of POWs at Gitmo...and then apologized.


And that's ALL most Americans did or will hear. And all the evidence of the real and actual abuse will be shrugged off.

[kevsand]

14. To paraphrase P.T. Barnum,

you'll get no argument from me about the relative intelligence levels of the general public, although I think it is less a matter of native intelligence and more a matter of laziness in information gathering.

At the same time, when I put my strategy cap on, I have to think that until Durbin said something that was seen as definitively clearing the air over his remarks, the debate would have continued to center on something he never actually said. Now that both sides have claimed to put the red herring behind us, the actual events at Gitmo can return to their proper place at center stage, and I fear that they will be so horrific as to command everyone's attention.

As stupid as we sometimes appear to be as a nation, we are still (I hope) basically good hearted people most of the time. The misinformed 70% who support mistreatment in the abstract will (again, I hope) be a far smaller number when confronted with actual physical evidence of the abuse of specific individuals, especially when the truth about their total non-connection to 9-11 is fully explained.

Or maybe I'm just a cockeyed optimist...

[Eloriel]

12. Oh, please. Does it depend on what the meaning of "is" is?

I saw clips of it all day long. He apologized, or close enough for EVERY news organization in the country to call it that, call it what it most surely was: an apology.

Did he retract his words? No? Who cares? For all practical purposes, whatever NON-retracting he did was totally lost, and forever, in the gleeful replaying of his clips and the even more gleeful announcements that "Senator Durbin apologized today...."

[kevsand]

19. The meaning of 'is' is an attempt at reductio ad absurdam

which is irrelevant to what I was trying to say.

Yes, of course, he offered an apology today. He apologized to anyone who misunderstood. He was probably right to do so, or the debate from now to eternity probably would have continued to center on something he never said.

And the media, almost without exception, has cast it in the proper context, as far as I can tell, by saying that he apologized for the comparisons to Nazi Germany. I haven't seen a single news report claiming that he apologized for having his facts wrong, because he didn't.

And I simply don't buy the idea that most people will get the wrong idea from this. Rather, the really sad fact is that the overwhelming majority of people will never know that any of this ever happened at all, and that's a tragedy of monumental proportions.

The people who will know about this at all will do so because they are paying attention, and paying attention means that there's a better than even chance that they understand it, unlike the majority of the public who never hear anything.

I think we may be making way too much of this. When the hard evidence is made public, Durbin will be right there shoving it down the Bush administration's throat.

[Bluerthanblue]

20. Bingo-

if the mass of people are taking what is being put in the trough of sound bite media, it wouldn't matter that he ever said anything at all.

His apology was to those he inadvertently hurt- or re-opened the wounds of- i actually called his office in DC today, (and i don't live in Ill. i live in NH) and expressed my appreciation for his words- ALL of them-

He is a man who feels very strongly about our soldiers- i suspect that there were those who are simply honoring thier 'vow' and NOT participating in abuse, but standing guard, cooking food, and fixing machinery who may have felt 'stung' by his words- and i have good reason for thinking this is what motivated his response.-
He NEVER apologized for his summation of the WRONGNESS of Guantanimo's 'tactics' and for the report that the FBI didn't even try to 'justify'-

Thinking, seeking minds will understand that- those who feed at the trough, as i said, wouldn't have been moved regardless of what was said by him- or by anyone else.

and i DO believe he did the 'noble' thing.- History (if we live to have any) will judge him in a favorible light i believe- just because the Bush family are arrogant rude bastards, doesn't mean we have to stop being who our concience dictates we SHOULD be.

[Cocoa]

21. Durbin and the soldiers

I hate to say this again, I've made this point so many times in the last few days, but here goes...

Durbin was the first person in Congress to raise the issue of the inadequate protective equipment for the troops. He brought it up in the fall of 2003 after a terrible helicopter crash that killed something like 16 troops.

Families of IL national guard members in Iraq went to HIM with their concerns about what their kids were saying about their equipment, and he took their concerns to the floor of the Senate.

[Al-CIAda]

10. Great letter -n/t