May 21, 2009

5/21: Running Scared

In the run-up to Pres. Obama's and ex-VP Dick Cheney's speeches this morning, liberal bloggers remained preoccupied with the Senate's refusal to provide the $80M that Obama requested to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The netroots are absolutely furious that 50 Dem senators joined their GOP colleagues in blocking the requested funds. In their view, yesterday's vote demonstrated that "the Republicans have the Democrats running scared on national security again." Lefty bloggers are also growing increasingly frustrated by what they perceive to be the absurdity of the arguments being employed by politicians (such as Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid) who are opposed to imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil. As Cenk Uygur complains:

"[B]ringing detainees to America does not mean we release them in America. The people who planned and carried out the first World Trade Center bombing are now in the United States! Everyone, panic! Oh no, that's right, they're locked up in a Supermax prison in Colorado, from which they will never emerge. Problem solved. Why is that so hard to understand?"

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Hawkins, McCain) continue to criticize NRSC Chair John Cornyn for endorsing Gov. Charlie Crist over ex-state House Speaker Marco Rubio in the FL GOP Senate primary. Erickson wants the NRSC to "retract the endorsement of Charlie Crist or clearly state their intention to stay the hell out of Florida."
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Morrill, Marshall, Wheeler) are pleased that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) defended Speaker Nancy Pelosi against her GOP critics, even though they believe that Specter is simply trying to avoid a primary challenge from the left.

GUANTANAMO: The Coward Caucus

Liberal bloggers are blasting Senate Dems after 50 of them joined their GOP colleagues in blocking the $80M that Obama requested to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay:

• Salon's Glenn Greenwald: "There's no more mewling, craven, subservient entity in the United States than the Senate Democratic caucus."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Can we finally put to bed the pipe dream that many of you have that 60 Democratic votes in the Senate will matter?"
• Al Giordano: "Unbelievable. Only six US Senators had the fortitude to vote on Wednesday against stripping the government of the budget to close the Guantanamo prison. [...] Booman makes the point that not even Bernie Saunders (I-VT) could do the right thing in an hour of moral crisis. [...] But where were [MA Sen. John] Kerry? [WI Sen. Russ] Feingold?"

digby: "Look, this is just one more example of the politics of national security trumping actual national security. Logic says that Guantanamo could be closed today and these prisoners could be brought tomorrow to military brigs around the country if not maximum security prisons we have by the dozens. The rest of the world would see Obama fulfilling his clear and unambiguous promise to close it (a promise he shared with his Republican rival, btw) and would gain tremendous credibility around the world for doing so. But the Republicans have the Democrats running scared on national security again and that's the end of that. Let's not pretend there's really a 'debate' going on here. The Democrats are more scared of Republicans than they are of terrorists or anything else and that's what's driving this."

Meanwhile, Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias notes that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) believes that CA prisons are "eminently capable of holding" Guantanamo detainees: "I wonder if there isn't a promising potential plan here. You could do something that gave California federal funds in order to house some terrorism detainees in California state prisons. That would help, to some extent, alleviate the state's budget problems."

GUANTANAMO II: Jailbreak!

Liberal bloggers are growing increasingly frustrated by the rhetoric being employed by politicians who oppose Obama's plans to imprison detainees on U.S. soil:

• Uygur: "[B]ringing detainees to America does not mean we release them in America. The people who planned and carried out the first World Trade Center bombing are now in the United States! Everyone, panic! Oh no, that's right, they're locked up in a Supermax prison in Colorado, from which they will never emerge. Problem solved. Why is that so hard to understand?"
• The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: "The Republicans, along with the Senate majority leader, are suggesting that rather than being incarcerated in state of the art maximum security facilities -- facilities financed via the multi-billion dollar U.S. prison-industrial-complex mandated by lawmakers -- terrorists will simply be turned loose on American soil for some crazy reason, and will subsequently hork a nuclear missile and proceed to crash it into your house. Somehow. The reality is that Guantanamo detainees would be held in our most secure, impenetrable prison facilities where it's literally impossible to harm any outside citizen. Fact: no human being has ever escaped from a Supermax prison. Zero. Convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui has been held in a Supermax near Florence, Colorado since 2006. So far, Colorado has not been destroyed."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "The Democrats stripped funding out of the defense appropriations bill for the winding down and dismantlement of the Gitmo detention facility. And the background issue is the refusal to bring accused terrorists or possibly at some point convicted terrorists into the US for incarceration. And I'm hearing this senator or that one from this or that state, saying hey, don't bring any of these terrorists to Maine! or maybe, don't bring them to Arkansas or Kentucky or wherever. But, c'mon, I'm assuming these guys aren't going to be deposited at the county jail in Baltimore or Baton Rouge. We've got an incredibly secure and incredibly hellish Super Max facility in Florence, Colorado. And it seems clear that that's where these guys would end up. (That's where Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, now resides, along with a bunch of other high-profile terrorists.) So can't we at least stop fools from Texas and Idaho from pretending these guys are coming to their state?"
• digby: "Obviously, this argument that we can't allow suspected terrorists to come into our communities and kill us all in our beds is beyond stupid (unless you actually believes these prisoners have supernatural powers as the racist rightwing pantwetters seemed to believe.) America has no shortage of dangerous killers and psychopaths locked up in its prisons and we seem to be able to handle them just fine. [...] Prisons are what we do. We have more people locked up that any other nation on earth. It's one of our biggest industries. We may be bad at everything else, but locking people up we are really, really good at. The idea that we can't keep a few broken, foreign, torture victims in jail is patently absurd."

REID: You Call This Guy A Leader?

Liberal bloggers continue to direct much of their fire at Reid, who yesterday defended the Senate's vote by declaring, "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States":

• Oliver Willis: "Enough with Harry Reid. The man is a serious mistake in leadership, and the only reason it isn't a bigger deal right now is because we've got Obama in the White House."
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Who's writing Reid's material these days? Dick Cheney?"
• Cesca: "For too many years with Harry Reid at the helm, we've been watching as this ineffectual mope skulks his way around the Hill -- allowing one successful Republican filibuster after another, while simultaneously enabling ridiculous and disingenuous Republican talking points, if not repeating them outright. [...] Indicative of the worst kind of Democrat, he's a wimp of highest order: a pushover substitute teacher type -- you remember the ones -- standing up there at the chalkboard with a crumpled, submissive posture, quietly begging for everyone to take their seats, while not realizing that cafeteria coleslaw is being clandestinely stuffed into his pants pockets."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Reid is the leader of a Senate in which the minority party only has 40 votes. And yet, Reid isn't leading very well. President Obama has asked Reid and his colleagues to shoulder a heavy burden, and work with the White House on some pretty monumental tasks. Is Reid ready to step up or not?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: We're Doomed!

Obsidian Wings' hilzoy wonders what the authorities will do with the four men who allegedly plotted to bomb NYC synagogues:

"This raises the difficult question: what should we do with these would-be terrorists while they await trial? And if they are convicted, what then? I assume that if it's too dangerous to move people at Guantanamo to the United States, it must be much too dangerous to allow these jihadists to run loose in our prisons. After all, they might provide financing for other jihadists from their supermax cells, or radicalize other prisoners, or use special Terrorist Mind Control Techniques to create a whole army of brainwashed convicts under their complete control.

I'd suggest killing them, cutting them into pieces, and shipping their parts to parts unknown immediately (trials? who can afford trials under these circumstances?), if I weren't afraid that some hitherto unknown al Qaeda trick might allow their reanimated body parts to slither around in search of one another and, eventually, reconstitute themselves as the Islamofascist Undead. Earlier, I thought we should send prisoners into space, but that was before I realized that that would allow them to join forces with the Klingons.

In fact, I can't think of a single thing to do that would not make matters worse. We're doomed."

LEST WE FORGET: American Idol Rewarding Mediocrity

The Huffington Post's Dan Abramson unloads on this season's American Idol winner, Kris Allen:

I don't even like American Idol, but last night's results have gotten me fired up. Not because Adam Lambert didn't win (while he's obviously talented, I don't think he's the god that everyone made him out to be), but because America seems to be in love with mediocrity. Mediocrity in the form of Kris Allen. Kris Allen? The guy with no personality and an average voice? Kris Allen is vanilla. Soft serve.

• He's the guy in college that had no personality but could swoon the ladies because he had a guitar and knew enough chords to play "Free Fallin."
• He's the guy who you're friends with, but when someone asks you to describe him, you draw a blank and tell them he's a "real good guy."
• If Kris Allen were a TV show, he'd be According To Jim.
• If I invited Kris Allen to a dinner party, he'd show up and ask if he can chip in instead of bringing a casserole. Kris Allen brings nothing to the table.
• If Kris Allen were a baseball team, he'd be the Baltimore Orioles. Sure, we all know they exist, and they're not that bad, but do we need 'em?
• Kris Allen has two first names. And the first one is spelled wrong. That's the only thing I know about him.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 21, 2009 12:23 PM