Monday, December 10, 2007
Deeds, Not Words
According to an article in The Washington Post, a bipartisan commission of members of Congress, including Nancy Pelosi, were told that the CIA was using waterboarding in 2002. Furthermore, lawmakers who knew that waterboarding was being used didn't bring up any explicit objections for the first two years.
Now, since this article's come out, the responses have been varied, from, "Kick 'em all out" to "Someone's trying to pass the blame." I can understand why the whole tape scandal might lead people to think that this was another Nexus of Politics and Terror moment, and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two Bush backers got the same idea.
But that doesn't avoid what's going on here. Our elected officials -- seriously, our elected officials, the ones we, the liberal blogosphere, trusted to clean up the place and set things right -- knew from almost the very start that torture was being used on detainees. And what did they do? They sat on it. They kept quiet. When the chance came to vote against it, they just shut up because they were afraid of being screeched down by the harpies in office.
They could have gone public. They could have made it a campaign issue. They could have shouted it from the mountaintops, run it in primetime, taken out enough ads to blanket Hoboken. But they kept their mouths shut, because they were afraid. And they still are.
I am tired of it. I am tired of a Democratic Congress that falters and fails out of fear of being painted as cowards and traitors. Kick them out. Kick them all out, from Reid to Pelosi to Feinstein to Boehner to Inhofe. Maybe a few of them can stay, like Kennedy or Frank. But we cannot, and we must not accept an elected leadership that does not move against atrocities out of fear of being mocked.
Now, since this article's come out, the responses have been varied, from, "Kick 'em all out" to "Someone's trying to pass the blame." I can understand why the whole tape scandal might lead people to think that this was another Nexus of Politics and Terror moment, and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two Bush backers got the same idea.
But that doesn't avoid what's going on here. Our elected officials -- seriously, our elected officials, the ones we, the liberal blogosphere, trusted to clean up the place and set things right -- knew from almost the very start that torture was being used on detainees. And what did they do? They sat on it. They kept quiet. When the chance came to vote against it, they just shut up because they were afraid of being screeched down by the harpies in office.
They could have gone public. They could have made it a campaign issue. They could have shouted it from the mountaintops, run it in primetime, taken out enough ads to blanket Hoboken. But they kept their mouths shut, because they were afraid. And they still are.
I am tired of it. I am tired of a Democratic Congress that falters and fails out of fear of being painted as cowards and traitors. Kick them out. Kick them all out, from Reid to Pelosi to Feinstein to Boehner to Inhofe. Maybe a few of them can stay, like Kennedy or Frank. But we cannot, and we must not accept an elected leadership that does not move against atrocities out of fear of being mocked.
