Cornyn's Absurd Hypothetical: What If Waterboarding is The Only Way To Interrogate?

[babylonsister]

Run time: 04:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csTjpXD2LH8   Posted on YouTube: January 15, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 16, 2009 By DU Member: babylonsister Views on DU: 1415

 
This guy is living proof that an education doesn't necessarily mean a thing. He is a box of rox and I'm embarrassed he got reelected.

[razors edge]

1. Then maybe we need to

skip the tar and feathers and grab some wash tubs to find out where that 1.2 trillion dollars went, and maybe the answers to a few more questions while we are at it.

[valerief]

2. These rethugs probably only get off watching snuff films. While wearing diapers and

shitting in them.

They are so perverse.

[Gman]

3. I apologize to all on behalf of Texas

for sending probably the only person stupider than Bush to DC.

[Loki]

7. I plan on calling his office tomorrow

and telling him that this Texan expects that Mr. Cornhole will continue to be an embarrassment to the thinking people of Texas and may the Republican Party become the last vestiges of the racist old South, inhabited by stupid old white men. Barack Obama took Dallas County: Obama 57% McCain 42%, Travis County (Home of Austin) Obama 64% McCain 35%, Jefferson County home of Beaumont Texas Obama 51% McCain49%, The Rio Grande Valley including San Antonio went overwhelmingly for Obama by as high as 86% in some counties, Big Bend counties and El Paso, Harris County home of Houston Obama 50% to McCain 49%. All the most populated areas in Texas are turning blue Mr. Cornyn and your performance at today's confirmation hearing just shows that rest of the country what a mindless dick you really are.

[GTurck]

16. I will...

second that. The Democratic candidate Noriega was much better qualified for the job and almost made it. We can hope for 2014.
Cornyn's our own Savanarola.

[Vyan]

4. "24" is their PORN!!!!

They get off on it - as I described today in this thread here.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Vyan/285

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) could not fathom that an Attorney General would reject a practice that both is unlawful and endangers Americans. He tried to get Holder to back off his anti-torture stance by presenting an absurd “ticking time bomb” hypothetical in which thousands of American lives are at stake. “You would still refuse to condone aggressive interrogation techniques?” Cornyn asked. When Holder replied that waterboarding is not the only interrogation method, Cornyn insisted, “Assume that it was”:

HOLDER: I think your hypothetical assumes a premise that I’m not willing to concede.

CORNYN: I know you don’t like my hypothetical.

HOLDER: No, the hypothetical’s fine; the premise that underlies it I’m not willing to accept, and that is that waterboarding is the only way that I could get that information from those people.

CORNYN: Assume that it was.

HOLDER: Given the knowledge that I have about other techniques and what I’ve heard from retired admirals and generals and FBI agents, there are other ways in a timely fashion that you can get information out of people that is accurate and will produce useable intelligence. And so it’s hard for me to accept or to answer your hypothetical without accepting your premise. And in fact, I don’t think I can do that.

A few minutes later, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) identified where Cornyn most likely thought up his torture-is-the-only-option scenario: “I understand Senator Cornyn’s questions. They are questions that anyone who watches Jack Bauer on ‘24" would ask.”

Vyan

[firedupdem]

5. Good Job Holder and Durbin. That ass tried to back him into a

wall and he didn't take the bait. Great Job!

[TheEuclideanOne]

6. Cornyn's hypothetical has one major flaw in it.

If, let's say that you had to get some piece of information and the only possible way to get it was to Waterboard somebody. If you don't have that information immediately, millions of people will die. Apparently it is very time sensitive, so you need it now! Well, if waterboarding/torture is proven to give you bad information. Do you want to use a technique that will give you the wrong information? If you do so in that scenario, those millions will be dead before you follow-up on that bad piece of information that the person gave you so that you would stop torturing him.

[humbled_opinion]

8. ITS ALL A SETUP....

Look, the next time a terror attack happens on our soil after Obama is President instead of coming together for the collective good the Repukes are going to play back all of this stuff i.e., we had a bad guy and the AG refused to allow him to be waterboarded so thats what may have led to this attack, i.e., Closing Gitmo resulted in bad guys lawerying up and getting off so they could go back to the battlefield and plot plan and execute these attacks, i.e., drawing down troops in Iraq caused Al-Qaida to regain a foothold and base to plot and plan this attack.

This is a tactic, O'liely started this crap two nights ago... It is the standard Hannity talking point now.

A guy where I work goes around saying "With all this change Obama is going to implement, what possibly can he say to the American people if we get attacked again?" Then he follows with
"I guess George W. Bush was right just won't cut it now, will it?"

[babylonsister]

10. Most sane people have always had a problem with not following

the Geneva Convention and torture in general. For those who don't, they are missing something in their humanity, intelligence, fill in the blanks. My opinion.

[Deep13]

9. Well the police don't waterboard suspects.

They come to the station voluntarily and say incriminating things to the police on camera despite being either free to leave or after being informed of Miranda rights. The only "enhancing" that goes on is the cop says s/he has such and such evidence and knows the suspect is lying. The suspect isn't compelled to say anything, but they almost always do.

So why would nearly drowning someone be the only way to do it?

[LynnTheDem]

11. Dear john; TORTURE is ILLEGAL under all laws. TORTURE is WRONG.

Period.

If you TORTURE someone, you are a TORTURER.

If you TORTURE someone, for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, you are the bad guy.

PERIOD.

It's really very simple.

[BobTheSubgenius]

12. "What if we turned our governments over to all-morons, all-the-time?"

That isn't the most ridiculous thing he's ever said; not by a long shot. This guy is beyond an embarrassment.

[Stevepol]

13. Hypothetically speaking, suppose we had a congressman who didn't really get elected.

Suppose the only way he could be elected would be to finagle with the voting machines and the voting rolls. If you were that man and you could do that, would you do it? Especially if you knew there was no way your election fraud could be detected, esp in TX, one of the citadels of electronic voting machine wrecknology.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

14. Senator Cornyn, hypothetically speaking

if you are a perfect ass, what do you think of a scenario where millions of people who saw you today are not?

[DUlover2909]

15. Maybe we should waterboard Mukasey to see if waterboarding is torture.

I bet he says it is after a while. What movie was it that I saw that done? A movie with Natalie Portman. I can't remember the name, but it was during the Spanish Inquisition.

[Pryderi]

17. K&R!

[jberryhill]

18. I always want to ask these guys - "What if the only thing that would work is gay sex with him?"

Okay, so there is a ticking time bomb and a terrorist is captured. He is resistant to pain, drugs, and every other interrogation technique. However, because of a bizarre emotional problem, he will be compelled to disclose the location of the bomb only if he receives fellatio from a male US Senator!

Senator Cornyn, would you set aside your principles to save America by giving that terrorist a blow job?

[mikelgb]

19. good one

I was thinking of "If it was the only way, would you cut off you own child's head to save America?"

with all due respect to the most distinguished Senator from Texas

[ProfessorPlum]

20. What is a "hypothetical"? Does Cornyn mean a "hypothetical question"?

Or to present a hypothetical scenario? A "hypothetical" isn't a thing, Senator Moron.

[tbyg52]

21. I'm on dialup, so I can't watch, but I don't have to to know Cornyn's an idiot. nt