# Olbermann calls for Bush & Cheney to resign **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 4, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513 "2007-07-04T18:00:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/241 "2007-07-09T16:25:28Z")
[QUOTE=bob\_co] Bombing the Islams up 500 or 1000 years into the stone age isn’t a bad idea. [/QUOTE] The only thing more pathetic than this statement is that there are very likely a lot of people that would agree. The Libby pardon isn’t going to bring Bush down. Yes, it shows the wanton disregard for the law that this adminstration has. But it has no legs. Between the people that believe the “but she wasn’t covert” lie and those that point to Clinton’s pardons (many of which were as inexcusable), there isn’t a great groundswell of outrage. Sorry, but we’re going to have to catch them red-handed doing something illegal. The prosecutor flap has more potential to do the trick, if the stonewalling can be broken and the truth is ever told. But I’m not betting on it. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/242 "2007-07-09T19:12:01Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] The only thing more pathetic than this statement is that there are very likely a lot of people that would agree. The Libby pardon isn’t going to bring Bush down. Yes, it shows the wanton disregard for the law that this adminstration has. But it has no legs. Between the people that believe the “but she wasn’t covert” lie and those that point to Clinton’s pardons (many of which were as inexcusable), there isn’t a great groundswell of outrage. Sorry, but we’re going to have to catch them red-handed doing something illegal. The prosecutor flap has more potential to do the trick, if the stonewalling can be broken and the truth is ever told. But I’m not betting on it. [/QUOTE] Actually, I personally don’t 100% _dis_agree with bob\_co’s statement, the caveat being that we have an identifiable enemy, sponsored by a recognized country, with an actual army that fights according to actual rules of engagement. In which case, I say bombs away! Otherwise, we’ve got to keep on rooting out the dirtbag suicide bombers and militant islamo-fascists who have proven themselves willing, with wild and reckless abandon, to misguidedly kill as many Americans as they possibly can, house by house, door by door, person by person, until the whole thing either collapses around us, or we turn it over to Iraq and hope for the best. In either case though, we’ve made several generations of enemies over there, and we may get to a point where the people in charge see what bob\_co is suggesting as actually possible. Ask the Mayor of Hiroshima about that. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/243 "2007-07-09T19:29:31Z")
[QUOTE=bob\_co] Bombing the Islams up 500 or 1000 years into the stone age isn’t a bad idea. [/quote] Yes it is; and even if it were not, Bush has done a piss-poor job of it. > [@](#): > > Other than that.. I am the conservative base and that man doesn’t represent me. Thank goodness. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/244 "2007-07-09T19:53:22Z")
By the by, going back to the OP, does anyone else feel that the speech owes just a touch to Cicero? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/245 "2007-07-09T20:30:43Z")
[QUOTE=buttonjockey308] Sure, torture was made official policy, but we had HUAC then too, it was a more backward time, then, and unfortunately, some of the people that were around for that war, are still around for this one, and are willing to give the idea a second life. Still… Torture has been both an official and unofficial means of interrogation since the beginning of interrogations. There will never be a clear intersection between action and policy when it comes to torture, because like it or not, in some cases, torture works. I don’t agree with it. I don’t like that fact, but there’s no other way to explain why CIA spooks are trained to withstand torture. [/QUOTE] Not this shit again.. Almost in all threads dealing with torture I pointed to this New Yorker’s report for more than 2 years, and it is still ignored. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa\_fact6](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6) > [@](#): > > OUTSOURCING TORTURE > The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program. That link has become a virtual hand grenade, every guy that has posted like “all we are saying, is give torture a chance!” ignored it or refused to defend how misguided they had become after I referred to that article, How I wish I had a link that would do that in any discussion! I will point out the part that shows one big reason torture should not be used: because it can get an incompetent leader false information that justifies other wars: > [@](#): > > A few months after September 11th, the U.S. gained custody of its first high-ranking Al Qaeda figure, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. He had run bin Laden’s terrorist training camp in Khalden, Afghanistan, and was detained in Pakistan. Zacarias Moussaoui, who was already in U.S. custody, and Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber, had both spent time at the Khalden camp. At the F.B.I.’s field office in New York, Jack Cloonan, an officer who had worked for the agency since 1972, struggled to maintain control of the legal process in Afghanistan. C.I.A. and F.B.I. agents were vying to take possession of Libi. Cloonan, who worked with Dan Coleman on anti-terrorism cases for many years, said he felt that “neither the Moussaoui case nor the Reid case was a slam dunk.” He became intent on securing Libi’s testimony as a witness against them. He advised his F.B.I. colleagues in Afghanistan to question Libi respectfully, “and handle this like it was being done right here, in my office in New York.” He recalled, “I remember talking on a secure line to them. I told them, ‘Do yourself a favor, read the guy his rights. It may be old-fashioned, but this will come out if we don’t. It may take ten years, but it will hurt you, and the bureau’s reputation, if you don’t. Have it stand as a shining example of what we feel is right.’ ” > > Cloonan’s F.B.I. colleagues advised Libi of his rights and took turns with C.I.A. agents in questioning him. After a few days, F.B.I. officials felt that they were developing a good rapport with him. The C.I.A. agents, however, felt that he was lying to them, and needed tougher interrogation. > > To Cloonan’s dismay, the C.I.A. reportedly rendered Libi to Egypt. He was seen boarding a plane in Afghanistan, restrained by handcuffs and ankle cuffs, his mouth covered by duct tape. Cloonan, who retired from the F.B.I. in 2002, said, “At least we got information in ways that wouldn’t shock the conscience of the court. And no one will have to seek revenge for what I did.” He added, “We need to show the world that we can lead, and not just by military might.” > > **After Libi was taken to Egypt, the F.B.I. lost track of him. Yet he evidently played a crucial background role in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s momentous address to the United Nations Security Council in February, 2003, which argued the case for a preëmptive war against Iraq. In his speech, Powell did not refer to Libi by name, but he announced to the world that “a senior terrorist operative” who “was responsible for one of Al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan” had told U.S. authorities that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two Al Qaeda operatives in the use of “chemical or biological weapons.”** > > Last summer, Newsweek reported that Libi, who was eventually transferred from Egypt to Guantánamo Bay, was the source of the incendiary charge cited by Powell, and that he had recanted. By then, the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq had passed and the 9/11 Commission had declared that there was no known evidence of a working relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Dan Coleman was disgusted when he heard about Libi’s false confession. \*\*“It was ridiculous for interrogators to think Libi would have known anything about Iraq,” he said. “I could have told them that. He ran a training camp. He wouldn’t have had anything to do with Iraq. Administration officials were always pushing us to come up with links, but there weren’t any. The reason they got bad information is that they beat it out of him. You never get good information from someone that way.” \*\* > > **Most authorities on interrogation, in and out of government, agree that torture and lesser forms of physical coercion succeed in producing confessions. The problem is that these confessions aren’t necessarily true. Three of the Guantánamo detainees released by the U.S. to Great Britain last year, for example, had confessed that they had appeared in a blurry video, obtained by American investigators, that documented a group of acolytes meeting with bin Laden in Afghanistan. As reported in the London Observer, British intelligence officials arrived at Guantánamo with evidence that the accused men had been living in England at the time the video was made. The detainees told British authorities that they had been coerced into making false confessions.** ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/246 "2007-07-09T21:19:45Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] It was not a near impachment; it was a real impeachment. It was frivolous because it was the result of a five year attempt to find absolutely anything with which to bring him down and eventually came to the point of Congressional vote only after the investigating prosecutor colluded with lawyers of a civil trial to bring him to testify on a point that should have been deferred until his term of office expired. (No, it wasn’t “a blowjob” It was false testimony in a deposition. However, that deposition was the result of a $43 million witch hunt that turned up not one violation of any law for which it was convened. And it was inspired and driven by simple personal animosity, not any attempt to accomplish the enforcement of law.) [/QUOTE] IAWTC. What boggles my mind is that you apparently don’t see that Scooter Libby was a victim of the exact same type of witch hunt. Bottom line: Libby shouldn’t have been going to jail because Libby didn’t do anything illegal. Patrick Fitzgerald was on a partisan witch hunt, and when he couldn’t get an indictment against Libby for “outing” Valerie Plame (which he didn’t, for the simple reason that what Scooter did not break the law. Libby’s actions may have been, indeed probably were, petty, vindictive, crass and unethical, but they were not illegal), Fitzgerald decided to “get” Libby for something. It’s a classic tactic of a Federal prosecutor who has no case: drag the grand jury out for days until you find the slightest little inconsistency in the testimony and then jump onto it with both feet screaming “Perjury!” at the top of your lungs. It is a tactic used by men and woman who care nothing for facts and the truth but are only out to hang something, anything on someone so they can claim “victory”, regardless of what actually happened, and it’s a process that almost nobody-you, me, Mother Theresa-can withstand. At this level it’s almost always a blunt political bludgeon used by one party to club someone in the other party. This was a political conviction, made for political grandstanding, and Bush used a political tool to negate it (ironically giving his opponents more political ammunition to use against him). It’s the exact same bullshit that Kenny Star used a decade ago against President Clinton, which is why an investigation of Whitewater wound up asking the president about his sexual peccadillos. I deplored it then and I deplore it now. Keith Olbermann and his fellow liberal talking heads foaming at the mouth while loudly decrying the commutation of Libby’s sentence as a great evil is laughable. It is much ado about nothing. In the end, Bush’s move was nothing more than a counter to the political maneuvering of the Democrats. Scooter Libby is not a criminal in any meaningful sense of the word, and the commutation of his sentence does not mean the end of our great republic, no matter what you are told to believe. It’s just typical, sleazy, DC political crap, about a remarkable as rain in April or Christmas in December. silenus, I’m curious. Would you think it a good idea to start your class off with, say, [this](http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11675) opinion piece? If no, why not? It’s certainly better written than Olbermann spittle flecked diatribe. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/247 "2007-07-09T21:35:47Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] IAWTC. What boggles my mind is that you apparently don’t see that Scooter Libby was a victim of the exact same type of witch hunt. Bottom line: Libby shouldn’t have been going to jail because Libby didn’t do anything illegal. Patrick Fitzgerald was on a partisan witch hunt, and when he couldn’t get an indictment against Libby for “outing” Valerie Plame (which he didn’t, for the simple reason that what Scooter did not break the law. Libby’s actions may have been, indeed probably were, petty, vindictive, crass and unethical, but they were not illegal), Fitzgerald decided to “get” Libby for something. It’s a classic tactic of a Federal prosecutor who has no case: drag the grand jury out for days until you find the slightest little inconsistency in the testimony and then jump onto it with both feet screaming “Perjury!” at the top of your lungs. It is a tactic used by men and woman who care nothing for facts and the truth but are only out to hang something, anything on someone so they can claim “victory”, regardless of what actually happened, and it’s a process that almost nobody-you, me, Mother Theresa-can withstand. At this level it’s almost always a blunt political bludgeon used by one party to club someone in the other party. This was a political conviction, made for political grandstanding, and Bush used a political tool to negate it (ironically giving his opponents more political ammunition to use against him). It’s the exact same bullshit that Kenny Star used a decade ago against President Clinton, which is why an investigation of Whitewater wound up asking the president about his sexual peccadillos. I deplored it then and I deplore it now. Keith Olbermann and his fellow liberal talking heads foaming at the mouth while loudly decrying the commutation of Libby’s sentence as a great evil is laughable. It is much ado about nothing. In the end, Bush’s move was nothing more than a counter to the political maneuvering of the Democrats. Scooter Libby is not a criminal in any meaningful sense of the word, and the commutation of his sentence does not mean the end of our great republic, no matter what you are told to believe. It’s just typical, sleazy, DC political crap, about a remarkable as rain in April or Christmas in December. [/QUOTE] Can you explain what was the “whitewater” “filegate” “monicagate” investigations that then led to the perjury of Libbi? I missed them, as it was that democrats controlled this. In light of the firings of the justices, it is clear to me that it did go the other way around, Fitzgerald was pressured to let many off the hook. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/248 "2007-07-09T21:38:40Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] . . . Keith Olbermann and his fellow liberal talking heads foaming at the mouth while loudly decrying the commutation of Libby’s sentence as a great evil is laughable . . . . silenus, I’m curious. Would you think it a good idea to start your class off with, say, [this](http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11675) opinion piece? . . . . It’s certainly better written than Olbermann spittle flecked diatribe. [/QUOTE] Olbermann did not say this. Did you even listen to what he said? He said this incident is one more in a litany (listed upthread) of Bush administration lies, transgressions, politicizing of government agencies, torturing (pun) and disregarding the law, etc. and one of the most egregious to date. For those (not you **Weirddave** ) whose said Plame wasn’t even a covert agent, why is she and her husband suing: "claiming that they [Rove, Cheney and Libby] [had] violated her constitutional rights and _discredited her by disclosing that she was an undercover CIA operative,"_ . . . . ? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/249 "2007-07-09T21:50:20Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Olbermann did not say this. Did you even listen to what he said? He said this incident is one more in a litany (listed upthread) of Bush administration lies, transgressions, politicizing of government agencies, torturing (pun) and disregarding the law, etc. and one of the most egregious to date. [/QUOTE] That’s the part I take issue with. It’s nothing of the sort. GIGObuster: huh? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/250 "2007-07-09T21:50:59Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] **silenus** , I’m curious. Would you think it a good idea to start your class off with, say, [this](http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11675) opinion piece? If no, why not? It’s certainly better written than Olbermann spittle flecked diatribe. [/QUOTE] Actually, no it isn’t. Very dry writing, IMO. But it does present the other side, and I’ll probably include it and a few like it in the handouts that will accompany the assignment. My mother subscribes to American Spectator, among others, so they are usually well represented in the editorials I ask my students to comment on. The key to getting the kids hooked with this is Olbermann. They are visual creatures, the students, and they will pay more attention to an empassioned talking head than they will a dry written editorial. Or an empassioned written editorial, for that matter. Ya gotta catch 'em before you can filet 'em. So somewhere about day 5 or so they’ll get the Olbermann piece, a packet of supporting and opposing editorials, and a few days to research the flap and the general background, then produce an analytical essay detailing the questions and supporting one side while refuting the other. With cites and logical thinking. Ought to wake them up, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/251 "2007-07-09T21:51:07Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] For those (not you **Weirddave** ) whose said Plame wasn’t even a covert agent, why is she and her husband suing: "claiming that they [Rove, Cheney and Libby] [had] violated her constitutional rights and _discredited her by disclosing that she was an undercover CIA operative,"_ . . . . ? [/QUOTE] And one thing that is omitted by the right wing media (to level of lying to their viewers, readers) is that Armitage finally admitted that he had resigned out of shame for what he had done, and he even asked forgiveness from Plame. Fitzgerald used his testimony on the way to get Libby, IMO Armitage was let go because he was the only one willing to show regret for what did happen and resigned in shame, I’m not holding my breath to see other members of this administration that were more culpable to do the right thing like Armitage did. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/252 "2007-07-09T21:58:43Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] What boggles my mind is that you apparently don’t see that Scooter Libby was a victim of the exact same type of witch hunt. [/QUOTE] Easily boggled, apparently, since I have made no such claim as you attribute to me. I’m not going to go looking for it, now, but around the time of Libby’s conviction I noted that finding functionaries who happened to say the wrong things under oath, then prosecuting them, is pretty standard in the U.S. for high profile investigations that are going nowhere. (Of course, in Libby’s case, it did not take five years, millions of dollars, and collusion between a prosecutor and a trial lawyer for an unrelated case. However, I have no problem viewing Libby as little more than the guy who was too stupid to get his story straight and stick to it. That does not exactly get Bush off the hook for reducing a sentence that was imposed by a court following mandatory guidelines that Bush has supported, of course, but then I do not expect integrity or consistency from Bush when it is “his” people.) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/253 "2007-07-09T21:58:48Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] GIGObuster: huh? [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Weirddave] What boggles my mind is that you apparently don’t see that Scooter Libby was a victim of the exact same type of witch hunt. … It’s the exact same bullshit that Kenny Star used a decade ago against President Clinton, which is why an investigation of Whitewater wound up asking the president about his sexual peccadillos. I deplored it then and I deplore it now. [/QUOTE] If it was just like what they did to Clinton, I would had expected by now to see nothing but the feathers if they had done the same to the Bush administration, (And that is because it is clear to me that there are many more valid reasons to impeach him) Bottom line: saying that getting Libby should be condemned because it was the same type of witch hunt is like comparing the Spanish inquisition with a dunking the witch in the water at a renaissance fair. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/254 "2007-07-09T22:13:08Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] . . . . The key to getting the kids hooked with this is Olbermann. They are visual creatures, the students, and they will pay more attention to an empassioned talking head than they will a dry written editorial . . . . Ought to wake them up, in any case. [/QUOTE] You \*sure \* you don’t want to include something by Bill O’Reilly? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/255 "2007-07-09T22:36:16Z")
No, kids can smell bullshit five miles away. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/256 "2007-07-09T23:00:31Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Ought to wake them up, in any case. [/QUOTE] If that doesn’t work, you could always try [Naked News.](http://www.nakednews.com/)😉 ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/257 "2007-07-10T01:51:27Z")
GIGObuster, oh I see. So it’s OK when the Democrats do it because the Bush regime is really evil and they probably deserve it anyway, but when the Pubbies do it it’s evil because Clinton is such a fine upstanding saint. :rolleyes: Why not condemn the practice as wrong no matter who wields the hammer? Tom, thx for the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/258 "2007-07-10T01:59:58Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] Not this shit again.. Almost in all threads dealing with torture I pointed to this New Yorker’s report for more than 2 years, and it is still ignored. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa\_fact6](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6) That link has become a virtual hand grenade, every guy that has posted like “all we are saying, is give torture a chance!” ignored it or refused to defend how misguided they had become after I referred to that article, How I wish I had a link that would do that in any discussion! I will point out the part that shows one big reason torture should not be used: because it can get an incompetent leader false information that justifies other wars: [/QUOTE] The movie Reservoir Dogs illustrate the yin and yang of torture in two lines: [QUOTE=Mr. White] If you wanna know something and he won’t tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb’s next. After that he’ll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Nice Guy Eddie] If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he’ll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don’t necessarily make it fucking so! [/QUOTE] Movie lines or not, both of these things are true. Now, Mr. Arar, the example in the NY’er article, is a civilian, assuming as the article and I both do, that he has no actual ties with terrorism, is not a terrorist, and was singled out just because of his indirect ties with a potential (or actual) terrorist. He was an unfortunate victim of what can be a necessary thing. The fact that the parents of this poor soul knew and warned him about the dangers of crossing paths with Syrian police speaks to the fact that torture (or at least the idea of it)works as an incentive NOT to be affiliated with the bad guys. Unfortunately, the incentive isn’t enough anymore, because in our rush to war, we’ve made enough enemies mad enough AT us, that no amount of propaganda or even actual torture is going to stop the next airplane from hitting the next tower. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/259 "2007-07-10T02:00:24Z")
Ken Starr: Began by investigating a sleazy real estate deal in Arkansas that took place before Clinton was president. Found nothing to incriminate anyone in the Administration. Ended by investigating the president’s sex life, backing him into a corner where he perjured himself. Pat Fitzgerald: Began by investigating an act of political retaliation directly connected to a lie that was used to lead the U.S. into war. Ended by nailing an official who committed perjury in coverup of same. Do you really, honestly see any equivalency here, **Weirddave?** Do you even see any **similarity?** If you do, you have an incurable case of retrocranial inversion. ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513/260 "2007-07-10T03:13:42Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] it’s OK when the Democrats do it because the Bush regime is really evil and they probably deserve it anyway, but when the Pubbies do it it’s evil because Clinton is such a fine upstanding saint. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Weirddave] What boggles my mind is that you apparently don’t see that Scooter Libby was a victim of the exact same type of witch hunt. [/QUOTE] Are you comparing lying about oral sex to lying about ratting out CIA agents? Do you really think this is a fair comparison? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olbermann-calls-for-bush-cheney-to-resign/410513.md?page=14)