What a Dick Durbin

Yea, that title is... rather provocative... but I actually cleaned it up some.

I'm simply enraged by this story:

Senator Dick Durbin’s remarks from the Senate floor last night will lead one to conclude that the man is crazy.  Durbin was on the floor to debate a portion of the Energy Bill and then went off on this tangent about prisoner abuse at Gitmo:

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ..... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

I heard Durbin's remarks on Sean Hannity's show today.  And I'm simply incredulous.  If these kinds of statements aren't aiding and abetting, then none are.  The ignorance on display here, by a United States Senator, is appalling.

And I'm fed up with it. 

The Bush administration ought to come out with guns blazing against these absolute idiotic statements made by people who are so clearly freakin' clueless and who know nothing of how these kinds of statements are fodder for the enemy.

I'm hearing Durbin won't apologize.  I don't want him to.  Instead, I'd like to see him do what he ought to do (if he had the courage of his convictions) and simply resign his Senate seat and join the other side.

Now.

UPDATE - Chris Muir offers perspective:

MORE:  From Captain Ed:

... Durbin owes the administration and the American servicemen in Gitmo and elsewhere an apology. Durbin's idiotic equating of the conditions he described from the e-mail he supposedly received to the genocide of the Jews, Cambodians, and gulag victims cheapens the horrors of those atrocities, and he owes the survivors an apology as well. His hysterical rants have damaged the war effort by providing propaganda for the Islamists with no rational basis whatsoever -- and for that, he owes everyone an apology.

YET MORE:  From Gerard, a man who knows his way with words:

I try, I really try, to remember the inner meaning of the First Amendment to the Constitution, but tools like Durbin make it very difficult. Instead, I find myself asking myself, more and more, "Exactly when did we stop using the word 'traitor' as a functional part in the American conversation?"

ONE MORE: Reverend Sensing provides a historical pictorial that the Dick Durbin ought to pay homage to.

Comments

[Fr. Tim]

I've just about had it up to here with the amount of hyperbole coming out of the Democratic Party. It seems like they have totally lost their ability to participate in reasoned discourse. This kind of nonsense may appeal to their base (what's left of it) but it just pisses the rest of us off.

Once again no solutions are offered. Just close down the place and let these terrorists go free to maim and kill. What idiots!

And how about the reported "abuse". So the room was over 100 degrees? IT'S CUBA, YOU MORON! IT'S OVER 100 FREAKIN DEGREES EVERYWHERE! And certainly lets not forget that these people come from the countries of extreme temperature changes anyway.

Then there's the matter of the Rap music. I'll tell you wha. . .OK, I'll give them that point.

Fr. Tim

[The Pretzel]

You IDIOTS. I'm SICK of your Politically Correct crap.

THIS is what he said, you Morons. He was describing what he had heard. FULL TEXT. IN CONTEXT.

Durbin:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here
[at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional]
Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what
one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained
hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water.
Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for
18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down
so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee
was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been
turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100
degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair
next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout
the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but
extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the
day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the
tile floor.
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing
what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly
believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad
regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is
not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their
prisoners.