Cutting & Running
Based on this article, it’s safe to say that Arianna Huffington is upset that Democrats are cutting and running on a host of fronts. My question for Ms. Huffington is why she’d think anything but that they’d cut and run.
“Mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support.”
That is how, according to the Washington Post, officials present characterized the reaction of lawmakers, including Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman, when they were briefed in 2002 about waterboarding and other severe interrogation techniques being employed by the CIA.
But it could just as well be the slogan of the Democrats for much of the last six-plus years, especially on Iraq.
This shocks her why? The truth is that Americans aren’t as ‘on fire’ to stop the war as the Nutroots say they are. Liberal loons like Ms. Harrington keep talking about Iraq like there’s some great groundswell of support for ending the war. The truth is that there’s twice as much support for continuing the fight in Iraq as there is for Congress.
Here’s how Huffington expresses her outrage for waterboarding:
It’s shocking that any American lawmaker, of either party, would go along with state-sanctioned torture. But it’s not shocking when you realize it’s just part of a long line of Democratic “acquiescence.” From the outright support of the war authorization (sorry, Hillary, we all know what the bill was about) to the latest surrender on war funding, Republicans know Democrats will bluster…and then cave. So of course they’re taking “increasingly hard-lined positions.”
According to the Post, when briefed in 2002 about the torture going on, “no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.”
It isn’t shocking, Ms. Huffington. Sane people think preventing future terrorist attacks is the most important government responsibility. Why anyone would oppose enhanced interrogation techniques is beyond me.
This isn’t significantly different than people approving of the NSA’s intercept program. When the NY Times revealed the existance of the program, they subsequently conducted a poll, hoping to show the revulsion with this ‘invasion of privacy’. Seventy percent of those polled expressed strong support for the program. The only shock I had was that it didn’t approach 90 percent.
Don’t look now but it sounds like the Nutroots are getting upset with their newly minted congress. I don’t believe that they won’t vote for the D on the ticket. I just don’t think that they’ll work as hard with their GOTV operation.
Technorati Tags: Iraq War, Arianna Huffington, NSA, Waterboarding, Democrats, National Security, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog