Fisking the Gorebot: Part 4

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Part 2
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It's time for the final section of Al Gore's speech! YAY! This is the grand finale, people. I'll try to make it good (especially since it's probably the last major thing I'll post until next week):

It is now clear that their obscene abuses of the truth and their unforgivable abuse of the trust placed in them after 9/11 by the American people led directly to the abuses of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison...

Let's break down this logic: Bush allegedly lied and abused his power, which somehow led to a confirmed case of prisoner abuse. I don't get how you can decide that something that probably didn't happen is the direct cause of something that definitely did happen, but maybe I'm just not nuanced in my thinking.

...and, we are now learning, in many other similar facilities constructed as part of Bush's Gulag...

You know, a gulag is usually defined as "a forced labor camp," not "a place where some prisoners are stacked naked."

...in which, according to the Red Cross, 70 to 90 percent of the victims are totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

Okay, first of all, there's a difference between "innocent" and "not guilty." If it hasn't yet been proven that they did something wrong, it doesn't make them innocent. And second, how would the Red Cross even know? Did they talk to the prisoners? Because I'm sure they always tell the truth.

The same dark spirit of domination has led them to - for the first time in American history - imprison American citizens with no charges, no right to see a lawyer, no right to notify their family, no right to know of what they are accused, and no right to gain access to any court to present an appeal of any sort.

Well, that's about 50% right. The problem is that those parts of the Act only apply to non-citizens who have been deemed a threat to national security. Be enlightened. (or, if you're really up to it, you can read the entire PATRIOT Act here. I haven't gotten around to it yet.)

The Bush Admistration has even acquired the power to compel librarians to tell them what any American is reading, and to compel them to keep silent about the request - or else the librarians themselves can also be imprisoned.

Oh no! How horrible! Look, if someone is reading books with titles like "How to Overthrow the Government" or "Dirty Bombs for Dummies," and they also happen to have terrorist connections, don't you think the government might want to do something about it?

They have launched an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, on the right of the courts to review their actions, on the right of the Congress to have information to how they are spending the public's money...

Way to not give a single example.

...and the right of the news media to have information about the policies they are pursuing.

When was the last time the news media used actual information for anything?

The same pattern characterizes virtually all of their policies. They resent any constraint as an insult to their will to dominate and exercise power.

Are they questioning your patriotism, Al? Awwwww.....

Their appetite for power is astonishing. It has led them to introduce a new level of viciousness in partisan politics.

Holy crap, the hypocrisy is incredible.

It is that viciousness that led them to attack as unpatriotic, Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in combat during the Vietnam War.

WRONG! They brought up Cleland's voting record on national defense issues, which showed that he voted against Bush's policies even while he claimed to support the fight against terrorism.

I find it interesting that "criticizing a person's voting record" is now equivalent to "attacking their patriotism," since Kerry used this same argument. It's almost as if they know that their votes are making us less safe, but they're too ashamed to admit it. Hmmm...

The president episodically poses as a healer and "uniter". If he president really has any desire to play that role, then I call upon him to condemn Rush Limbaugh - perhaps his strongest political supporter - who said that the torture in Abu Ghraib was a "brilliant maneuver" and that the photos were "good old American pornography," and that the actions portrayed were simply those of "people having a good time and needing to blow off steam."

See, there's another problem with you and your liberal ilk. Rush Limbaugh is not connected to the government. He is an American citizen enjoying his right to freedom of speech. If Bush were to condemn Air America, you'd be accusing him of censorship, but you somehow find nothing wrong with asking him to attack a talk radio host who said something you don't agree with. Hey, I've got an idea: Let's make the president condemn everyone who says something contrary to popular opinion! That's the real American way!

(D)umb@ss.

This new political viciousness by the President and his supporters is found not only on the campaign trail, but in the daily operations of our democracy.

The only "viciousness" I see is coming from your side, Gore. You know, like Ted Kennedy comparing Bush to Saddam Hussein, Congresspeople calling Republicans "chickenhawks," John "F**k Up" Kerry and his "crooked liars" comment, and a host of weird socialist moonbats calling the president and his administration un-American. Politician, heal thyself!

They have insisted that the leaders of their party in the Congress deny Democrats any meaningful role whatsoever in shaping legislation, debating the choices before us as a people, or even to attend the all-important conference committees that reconcile the differences between actions by the Senate and House of Representatives.

WHAT? You're talking about the Democrats who filibuster every single one of Bush's judicial nominees and hide out in another state when the Republicans disagree with them, right?

The same meanness of spirit...

It sounds so juvenile. I wonder if his lip was quivering when he said this.

...shows up in domestic policies as well. Under the Patriot Act, Muslims, innocent of any crime, were picked up, often physically abused, and held incommunicado indefinitely.

Yeah, just because they were Muslim, we rounded them up and threw them in "gulags." Come on, Al, are you really this ignorant? In case you haven't noticed, the situation we're in is "most terrorists are Muslims," not "most Muslims are terrorists." That's why it seems like they're arresting random people for their religion. But you'd have to be pretty dumb to think that's the real reason.

Oh, and I will once again point out that there is a difference between "innocent" and "not guilty."

What happened in Abu Ghraib was difference not of kind, but of degree.

Way to play the "racism" angle.

Differences of degree are important when the subject is torture. The apologists for what has happened do have points that should be heard and clearly understood. It is a fact that every culture and every politics sometimes expresses itself in cruelty.

Which is one of the reasons we're in Iraq in the first place, in case you forgot.

It is also undeniably true that other countries have and do torture more routinely, and far more brutally, than ours has. George Orwell once characterized life in Stalin's Russia as "a boot stamping on a human face forever." That was the ultimate culture of cruelty, so ingrained, so organic, so systematic that everyone in it lived in terror, even the terrorizers. And that was the nature and degree of state cruelty in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

About time you said something I can agree with.

We all know these things, and we need not reassure ourselves and should not congratulate ourselves that our society is less cruel than some others, although it is worth noting that there are many that are less cruel than ours.

Name one. Come on. Name one society with more freedom and respect for human rights than ours. I bet you can't. Oh, and Canada doesn't count, since they don't have freedom of speech.

And this searing revelation at Abu Ghraib should lead us to examine more thoroughly the routine horrors in our domestic prison system.

I bet you blame Bush for that, too, since he's created a culture of meanness.

But what we do now, in reaction to Abu Ghraib will determine a great deal about who we are at the beginning of the 21st century. It is important to note that just as the abuses of the prisoners flowed directly from the policies of the Bush White House, those policies flowed not only from the instincts of the president and his advisors, but found support in shifting attitudes on the part of some in our country in response to the outrage and fear generated by the attack of September 11th.

Here we go with "root causes."

The president exploited and fanned those fears, but some otherwise sensible and levelheaded Americans fed them as well.

Back up. He exploited our fears? WE WERE THE VICTIMS OF THE WORST TERRORIST ATTACK IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION, YOU IDIOT! WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? Bush's behavior after the attacks reassured us. It didn't make us more afraid. At least that's the effect it had on me. I'd be terrified if BJ Clinton was in the White House at the time. (Why does nobody ever point out that Clinton's first and middle initials spell BJ, anyway?)

I remember reading genteel-sounding essays asking publicly whether or not the prohibitions against torture were any longer relevant or desirable.

If the people who flew those planes were still alive, I wouldn't care what we did to 'em.

The same grotesque misunderstanding of what is really involved was responsible for the tone in the memo from the president's legal advisor, Alberto Gonzalez, who wrote on January 25, 2002, that 9/11 "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

That's true. The enemy we're fighting now has no respect for the Geneva Convention or "international law." They won't be satisfied until we're either dead or kneeling towards Mecca five times a day. I say we give them what they deserve.

We have seen the pictures.

Torture 24/7, on CNN!

We have learned the news. We cannot unlearn it; it is part of us. The important question now is, what will we do now about torture. Stop it? Yes, of course.

That's why it's been investigated already. Why is that so hard to understand?

But that means demanding all of the facts, not covering them up, as some now charge the administration is now doing.

How can you possibly say that unless you haven't turned on the TV for a month?

One of the whistleblowers at Abu Ghraib, Sergeant Samuel Provance, told ABC News a few days ago that he was being intimidated and punished for telling the truth. "There is definitely a coverup," Provance said. "I feel like I am being punished for being honest."

By whom? You can't say that Bush is responsible if you have no proof. Again, nice try.

The abhorrent acts in the prison were a direct consequence of the culture of impunity encouraged, authorized and instituted by Bush and Rumsfeld in their statements that the Geneva Conventions did not apply.

The Geneva Conventions don't apply to terrorists who aren't in uniform. It's an undeniable fact.

The apparent war crimes...

At least he's somewhat honest...

...that took place were the logical, inevitable outcome of policies and statements from the administration.

Yeah, because I remember Bush stating that "any Iraqis who resist our occupation will be stacked nekkid and photographed."

To me, as glaring as the evidence of this in the pictures themselves was the revelation that it was established practice for prisoners to be moved around during ICRC visits so that they would not be available for visits. That, no one can claim, was the act of individuals. That was policy set from above with the direct intention to violate US values it was to be upholding. It was the kind of policy we see - and criticize in places like China and Cuba.

Holy crap, you're an idiot. "Oh no! Suspected terrorists were denied visits! That's the equivalent of being thrown in a cell for the rest of your life because you criticized the government!"

Moreover, the administration has also set up the men and women of our own armed forces for payback the next time they are held as prisoners.

"Because American prisoners were treated with the utmost respect before Bush poisoned the well of human decency!!!" You know, you're just giving them an excuse, like the people who murdered Nick Berg. They know that you'll throw a tantrum if they say that they committed atrocities because of something we did. It's best to STFU and let the military deal with it.

And by the way, if you want a valid comparison of this war to Vietnam, look at the treatment of POWs by the enemy.

And for that, this administration should pay a very high price. One of the most tragic consequences of these official crimes is that it will be very hard for any of us as Americans - at least for a very long time - to effectively stand up for human rights elsewhere and criticize other governments, when our policies have resulted in our soldiers behaving so monstrously.

If they were monsters, their victims wouldn't be alive to tell about what happened. And guess what? We still have moral authority when it comes to human rights, because unlike Hussein, Castro, or Kim Jong Il, we actually punish the people who do these things. That's how we exercise that authority.

This administration has shamed America and deeply damaged the cause of freedom and human rights everywhere, thus undermining the core message of America to the world.

What message do you want to send the world? "America: We'll bend over and take it!"

President Bush offered a brief and half-hearted apology to the Arab world - but he should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions.

THE. F**KING. GENEVA. CONVENTIONS. DON'T. APPLY. TO. TERRORISTS.

He also owes an apology to the U.S. Army for cavalierly sending them into harm's way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders.

You mean their retired commanders and two anonymous sources? How dare he actually send soldiers to do their job when a couple people might disagree with it!!!11oneone!!!

Perhaps most importantly of all, he should apologize to all those men and women throughout our world who have held the ideal of the United States of America as a shining goal, to inspire their hopeful efforts to bring about justice under a rule of law in their own lands.

I guess Ted Kennedy was sober enough to co-author this monstrosity of a speech.

Of course, the problem with all these legitimate requests is that a sincere apology requires an admission of error, a willingness to accept responsibility and to hold people accountable.

We're demolishing the frickin' prison, aren't we? That seems to be a pretty solid admission of error. However, it's pretty hard to admit that you're guilty of something YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH.

And President Bush is not only unwilling to acknowledge error.

I think I just covered that one.

He has thus far been unwilling to hold anyone in his administration accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and mistakes in the history of the United States of America.

That was the biggest exaggeration since the Great Exaggeration Festival back in '87. Are you forgetting a little thing called "Vietnam," which you liberals seem obsessed with? Or the fact that we've lost fewer soldiers in this war than almost every other war in our history except Gulf War I? I really find it hard to believe that they don't know how outrageous these claims are.

He is willing only to apologize for the alleged erratic behavior of a few low-ranking enlisted people, who he is scapegoating for his policy fiasco.

Classic. "It's never the fault of the people who did it! Let's climb the blame tree!"

In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.

Those "legally cast ballots" had already been counted. You just wanted to see if a miracle could somehow make a few more of them say "Gore/Lieberman."

I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability...

Again, the only people doing this are on your side. Bush hasn't done anywhere near enough to combat the violations of American government practices by the left. For example, the 9th Circuit Court still exists.

So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed...

I always think it's hilarious when people refer to "secrets" as if everyone knew about them, which would, of course, make them no longer secret.

...as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.

The fact that you're allowed to leak this verbal diarrhea into the ears of your moonbat minions proves that we're still honoring the principles of America.

I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable - and I believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, "We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility."

Unfortunately, when you attack the president with false accusations and pretend that he can see everything happening in Iraq, you lose a ton of credibility.

And one more thing: It's almost time for a new election. You can take the sour grapes out of your mouth now.

Posted by CD on May 28, 2004 06:15 PM
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