The Daily Show: The Strife Aquatic
By Nicole Belle Thursday Nov 01, 2007 2:45pm
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Jon Stewart and team look at all the ridiculous machinations that the Republican party-- including presidential contender Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey-- is going through to avoid answering a question that EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. US. already know the answer to: Is waterboarding torture?
Whitehouse: ...So is waterboarding constitutional?
Mukasey: I don't know what's involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.
Stewart: You don't know what's involved in wa...how do you not know waterboarding is going to be the test?
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W says he will have no other AG if McSucky isn't passed.
What a perfect invitation for all the blogs to unite and charge the phones and clog the tubes to Congress telling them we don't want him.
Why give W another attorney general to further wash his bloody hands?
Mukasey can't say it is torture even though he knows it is. He is protecting this mal-administration from crime even before he is A.G.
Pathetic.
Jo @ 2:
Duh -- protecting the crimes of this mal-administration.
Now let's be fair: MUKASEY HAS DRAWN A ‘LINE IN THE SAND’ ON WATERBOARDING
Bushco's legacy: Obfuscate, parse, deny, lie.
Gee. Mr. Mukasey, if you haven't looked into how waterboarding is conducted or have an opinion as to whether it is torture or whether it is legal, then you'll fit right in to Mr. Bush's Cabinet. Another intellectually incurious soul sitting at the table of power.
Sigh.....
I wonder if Mukasey was waterboarded if he would think the procedure to be cruel, inhumane and degrading. I wonder if he was subjected to it repeatedly over a number of days, weeks and months in addition to sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, extremely loud noise and what ever else those sick, wrongheaded criminals employ in thier holy crusade against "Islamofascists" (i.e. brown people from the wrong part of the world). Oi...
Don Davis @ 4:
Well there ya go. No cramps.
everyone should get ready for the MANY emergency problems and fake attacks
against America that will happen before we get bush/cheney out of office.
REMEMBER---bush has given himself the power fascist-dictator authority to
declare a national ememgency at any delusional moment. this bastard
does not want to leave office. HE HAS NOT FINISHED FUCKING AMERICA.
bush/cheney are part of the real terrorists that are attacking America.
There has to be a way to get a clear answer out of Mukasey. How about waterboarding ? That's not illegal, is it ?
"Torture in the name of the free, more misery for you and me
They ship ‘em out so we can’t see the way they bring ‘em to their knees..."
-Wackiavelli
Ruh-roh! Ratchet up the alerts!!! From CNN.COM:
Nuclear plant worker stopped with explosive
A contract employee of an Arizona nuclear plant was stopped at a plant entrance Friday with an explosive device in his truck, officials told CNN. The capped pipe was found in the truck bed during a regular security search outside the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station -- the country's largest nuclear plant. developing story
The worse we've ever seen happen in water boarding, is that many participants then beg to be burned at the stake.
Obvious being burned at the stake isn't torture either.
Dr. Acula @ 5:
don't forget torture
Nobody could make this garbage up in a thousand years. I know it's all true but I still can't believe it! Bush THREATENS not to have a AG. Well then fine. I would rather have no Ag for a year then another brown nosed presidential yes man we had before. Go ahead make our day. Ohh,we are so scared..
I'm sure when Bush, Cheney, Gonzolez and Mukasey are before God they will be relieved to be sentenced to "infammable cleansing" (hellfire).
Samson- @ 14:
In the name of america and all it's people for the sake of it's people ........
WHO ARE THESE TWO??
Developing StoryTwo Democrats say they will vote for Bush's attorney general pick, virtually ensuring the nomination will move to the full Senate.
Mukasey: I don’t know what’s involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.
but i'll bet he knows porno when he sees it!
joe cantwell @ 19:
Don't forget -- it also depends on who's doing the waterboarding!
(EDIT: the last line on the description should read "to be ON the test?" The word "on" is missing.)
The dems just caved on torture.
They will never stick together like the gop.
Feingnold ids voting yes.
Geez.
Pure baloney.
How can he possibly NOT KNOW what's involved in waterboarding? It's not like it's some new thing that just happened to come up in conversation over the past couple of weeks. This has already been debated, discussed, analysed all over the media. Other people have formed opinions on it.
Does this guy have his head stuck that deep in the sand? Does the United States congress really want to confirm an attorney general who is THAT clueless about what's going on around him?
Rhetorical questions of course, because what he said is just BS plain and simple.
getalife @ 22:
Seriously? F*ck.
They could have solved this problem easily. They just needed to require that all nominees on the short list, sign a release and undergo a waterboarding session at the hands of the fine SERE instructors.
Dr. Acula @ 20:
I'm waiting for Rudy to clarify this remark. Cause it's so obvious why it's wrong when the japs did it, but okay when WE do it. We're the GOOD GUYS!
Don't read anything but old Sgt. Rock comic books for a couple of months, and this will make perfect sense.
It should be ovious to everyone that Mukasey can't admit that waterboarding is torture. If he did, his first act as AG would be to draw up indictments of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others. He was nominated precisely because he WOULDN'T bring charges against his employers.
The other obvious point is, if "enhanced interrogation techniques" have been the topic of so much debate for the last few years, why hasn't Mukasey, ostensibly a well read and intelligent person, formed an opinion on it yet?
feinstein's voting yes. i'll never support her again.
if you're from cal. and you feel the same way
let her know.
senator@feinstein.senate.gov
there are democrats that are cowards and nazi enablers. she's one.
joe cantwell @ 19:
I also figure that he knows exactly when a human life begins, and what are the exact ramifications regarding the complex bio-chemical theories and practices behind stem cell research and why it should be illegal.
Geez, they sure get the complex stuff "right" for being a bunch of jackasses who can't master the basics.
George Waterboard Bush has found his legacy.
His mom must be proud.
She probably is!
joe c:
Good luck trying to e-mail DiFi.
This morning I finally received an e-acknowledgement from Feinstein's office regarding a petition I e-signed regarding Limpball's "phoney soldiers" bombast.
I tried to send a reply thanking her and urging her to vote no on Mukasey. It was kicked back with this reply:
The original message was received at Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:54:18 -0400 (EDT)
from localhost [127.0.0.1]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
(reason: 550 5.1.1 User unknown)
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to bridgeheadpsq.senate.gov.:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 5.1.1 User unknown
550 5.1.1 ... User unknown
<<snip
john doheny @ 26:
He won't clarify jack squat. He is the hero of 9/11, he is above us peons. In fact the GOP has been giving the literal and real middle finger to 80% of this country for the better part of 3 decades. They are not going to stop now, are they?
The sad part, that a big percentage of that 80% is too stupid to know that a middle finger is a visual shorthand for "fuck you" because they see it as a sign of endearment.
And I bet anything, that this AG asshole is going to pass too. I bet a few dems will cave in at the last minute.
WE ARE FUCKED, we have been had...
E-mail I just sent to Diane:
'Well, there you are Sen. Feinstein, enabling torturing of people just like was done to "heretics" during the Inquisition. Who do you fancy yourself to be? Torquemada? No, well, maybe Isabella, running the Moors and Jews out of Spain if they don't convert. Yes, that's it, Senator Diane Isabella, (D.-Spain).'
more torture denials in case you had not seen them ... now we can also add Shumer and Feinstein to the pro-torture team... pathetic
...perhaps waterboarding the ag candidates, while asking them if it is constitutional, would be helpful...
SteveinSC @ 33:
Hey! Spain is a beautiful country, full of great places to visit, a kick ass night life, friendly people, and some of the best food on earth. The expulsion of the Jews was despicable, but the British did it earlier than the Spaniards. And the moors were uninvited guests. And more locals full bloodied catholic Spaniards suffered under Torquemada than any other group.
At least the Spanish people had to fortitude to sent their previous president, that Bush sycophant twerp packing and bring their troops home just like they demanded. For a country who endured a dictatorship (enabled by the US go figure) they sure figured out how the democratic process worked in less than three decades.
She is D-California. There are plenty of assholes over here in the left coast to deserve her.
Questions to right wingers: Are there any waterboarding techniques that you would disapprove being used on our soldiers? If so, what are they?
If not, that's ok. You have no objections about the enemy taking such actions against our troops.
So here's what we do. Let's choose randomly--without forewarning--one of the carefully screened audiences for a Bush appearance. No chance of anti-Bush bias that way. Let's subject each member of that pre-screened, pro-Bush audience to waterboarding. And then let's ask them how they feel about the practice.
Ok, Ok, maybe on some planet, waterboarding could be considered questionable.
Let's deal with something more definitive, more 'Black or White'.
Suppose there were a demented fool, a babbling boob, and he found a cadre of others just like himself, and they practiced and learned how to stand while having their heads jammed up their as**s, and speak (although, as would be inspected, unintelligibly).
(Now this sounds ridiculous, but bear with me, this is hypothetical, just to illustrate a point)
Further suppose that this fool got the Supreme Court of the land to appoint him President, and spent over six years pontificating to the public about his delusions, all with his head tucked in his rectum, his mumbled and babbled communications translated by others just like him, called 'Spokespersons', who also mumbled and babbled unintelligibly.
Would THIS be considered torture? (from the public's point of view?)
kudos to Stewart for shining the light on the roaches
Waterboarding is NOT torture ONLY if putting people through shredders is.
They should waterboard Mukasey and let him decide for himself. While they are at it they should include baby bush and cheney.
When they say US doesn't torture what they mean is, they send them to foreign countries and let them do the torturing.
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