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About Durbin’s apology

A few points, from little to big, about the wingnut show trial that culminated yesterday in Dick Durbin’s apology for his remarks of June 14:

-- Durbin said nothing for which any reasonable, honest person should request an apology.  I know it, you know it, even Andrew Sullivan knows it.  Durbin said that America should treat prisoners better than brutal dictatorships do.  But I suppose we all know the real reason why wingnuts have a problem with that.

-- Richard Daley is a fool.  A craven, cowardly fool, at that.

-- Nobody made John McCain the Arbiter of Justice while we weren’t looking.  McCain has been pulling this stunt for some time now, ever since he set the rules for the 2004 presidential campaign.  You remember that one: McCain decided that the Swift Boat Vets should not lie about Kerry’s service in Vietnam, and, in the interest of fairness and balance, that MoveOn.org should not tell the truth about Bush’s service (and mysterious disappearances) in Alabama.  The Swift Boat Vets won that one, and the “referee” helped immeasurably.  Now here comes Honest John to demand an apology from Durbin, while saying this about Bill Frist’s serial lying and pandering in the Schiavo case:

I don’t want to criticize Bill Frist. He obviously had very sincere feelings about this issue. All of us were very emotional. We—Terri Schiavo had a loving parents and siblings that wanted to care for her for the rest of her life. I think our hearts went out to her in that situation and her family. Maybe we didn’t use our brains as well as we should have. So I can’t—I know that Bill Frist has denied that he “diagnosed” Terri Schiavo. I think we ought to get this issue behind us and move forward.

I don’t want to criticize Bill Frist.  I know that Bill Frist has denied that he “diagnosed” Terri Schiavo. Straight talk from the quintessential maverick.

And a hat tip to Arianna Huffington for calling out McCain on “his near-operatic lie that he’s ‘totally in agreement and support of President Bush.’”

-- As for the odious Frist himself, and his press release this Monday—“Shameful does not begin to describe this heinous slander against our country . . . and the brave men and women risking their lives every day to defend it”—well.  I am sorry to admit that this humble blog does not have the rhetorical capacity to give any of Frist’s remarks on the subject the reply they deserve.  That, clearly, is the purview of the Rude Pundit.  And this is one of those times when I wish I really was the Rude Pundit.

No, wait, here comes another one of those times:

-- Rumsfeld:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in an interview to air Wednesday on Fox News Radio’s “The Tony Snow Show,” tried to equate Durbin’s comment with actress Jane Fonda calling U.S. soldiers war criminals during a visit to North Vietnam in 1972.

“Some people always in their lives say something they wish they hadn’t said,’’ Rumsfeld said. “We just watched Jane Fonda run around trying to recover from the things she did and said during the Vietnam War. . . . He said some things and he’s going to have to live with them, and I think that that’s not a happy prospect.’’

I suppose this means we can look forward to forty years of knuckle-draggers spitting in Durbin’s face.  (No offense meant to any actual draggers of knuckles, mind you.) Meanwhile, Rumsfeld contemplates a new round of prizes for the senior officers in charge during the Abu Ghraib atrocities: 

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering new top command assignments that would possibly include promoting Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Pentagon and military officials say. . . .  [W]ith the most senior officers cleared of wrongdoing, there is a belief among many at the Pentagon and in the military that the scandal may be receding in the rear-view mirror of public opinion.

So there’s your Dick Durbin Show Trial roundup, kids.  The people who criticize torture are vilified, and the people who oversee it are rewarded.  And the United States takes two more confident, emphatic strides toward the abyss.  Thanks, all you wingnuts, both in and out of office.  You’ve done more to aid and comfort the enemy than you’ll ever know.

Posted by on 06/22 at 02:49 PM

  1. No time to chime in beyond a hearty Amen, MB!

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  04:35 PM

  2. I assume I’m not the only person who’s been reminded, over the past couple of days, of the Nevada senator who indignantly opposed the Corleone family’s expansion into Las Vegas until, to his great surprise, he woke up naked in bed beside a murdered hooker.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  04:48 PM

  3. It saddens me to see those on the left calling for Durbin’s head. I read his statement and it seemed to me to say, “Sorry that the terms I used while speaking the truth offended anyone.”

    I refuse to call it an apology. Now I understand why anyone on the right would hear what he said and spin it into a victory. However, I don’t understand the reaction from liberals. But, maybe I missed something.

    Seeing myself as a midget in a world of mental giants, I admire you opinion. Since you teach literature, you must have a better handle on English language than I. Could you please explain what is wrong with my assessment of Durbin’s latest remarks?

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  05:13 PM

  4. Bravo, Michael.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  06/22  at  05:29 PM

  5. Hey, Ex Con, I agree that people on the left shouldn’t attack Durbin.  He didn’t have too many options, once Honest John weighed in.  (I note, by the way, that the wingnuts aren’t even accepting this apology as an apology.) But check this out:

    “I’m also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military,” he added, his voice tight and quavering.

    That really is the nut graf, as they say in the business.  To criticize torture is now to cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military.  Look, the object of this show trial is not only to vilify Durbin; it’s to make sure that no elected official who objects to American practices of torture and murder will be allowed to escape with his career and reputation intact.  Weepin’ Joe Lieberman and Boss Richard Daley have already gotten that message.

    Thanks for the sharp comment.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  05:44 PM

  6. Bravo, indeed, Michael.

    And a hearty Bravo to Ex Con. I’m not a professor of anything, but I think your take is exactly right. Hence all those “ifs,” inside Durbin’s so-called apology. He was saying he was sorry that his speech was so easily spun, sorry that those who have suffered might think he was unaware that the simple description he read, horrible as it was, didn’t encompass every horror that was ever committed in the name of National Socialism, Soviet Communisim, or Pol Pot’s mad version of same.

    Durbin is not the villain here. He doesn’t deserve the ire of disappointed bloggers or commentators, along with the usual remarks about Democratic lack of spine.

    Michael sets his sights on exactly the right targets here, and the useless wits in the media, like Chris Wallace, who couldn’t wait to lift a pint of lager with Herr Comrade Hewitt. Why isn’t anyone outraged that Chris Wallace thinks that the inmates of Bergin/Belsen would have been “happy to deficate on themselves,” whatever the hell that might mean? And does anyone really believe that Durbin would have escaped the usual vilification had he compared that FBI description with, say, “the worst excesses of the French revolution.” Not bloody likely.

    That Durbin’s remarks can be spun as backing down and an admission of guilt doesn’t mean that it makes any kind of sense for people like us to add our voices to that spin. Quite the opposite, as I take it that Michael is doing in this post.

    In fact, that spin can be unspun, if we stick by Durbin, and figure out some way to attack back, both against the enablers like McCain et al, and against a Washington press corps that has become belligerently hostile to all things left, liberal, and Democratic, not to even mention their apparent low regard for the American constitution.

    Posted by Leah A  on  06/22  at  06:33 PM

  7. Dick Durbin may not be the principal villain here, but unlike the media and the wingnuts, he, and other Democrats who have backed down from criticizing torture, or simply refused to criticize it the first place, are put in office in large measure by the votes of progressives.

    If you want progressive voices loudly and clearly proclaiming the truth on this and other matters of high importance, you have to be willing to elect them, and be willing to refuse to elect cowards who back down in response to the sort of criticism that Durbin faced.

    All of which is just another way of saying that all things Democratic are not necessarily liberal, let alone left.  And the quicker leftists and liberals figure that out, and alter their political actions accordingly, the more likely that there will be a clear, organized, and consistent expression of progressive values on the American political scene, whether that takes the form of a dramatically reformed Democratic Party, or something else.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  06:50 PM

  8. Yes to Ben Alpers, Durbin has it coming. Tactically, his apology was the classic democratic mistake of trying to please Tim Russert rather than act as an opposition party should. On principle, his first statement was obviously right, and so he’s wrong to apologize on both counts. I don’t see why Honest John weighing in makes a difference to anyone but Russert. I don’t know enough about Illinois to know what Daley’s intervention was about, but could anyone possibly have cared?

    The real lesson that we should draw is that Democrats and allied progressives need to actively expose McCain’s disgusting support for Bush, and for torture, in an organized fashion. As has been noted elsewhere, there is nothing more spineless or repugnant than the Republicans who ask for praise for conceding that the policies they support suck. Rather than apologizing, Durbin should have held up a powerline t-shirt and asked if this is what Lindsay Graham thinks of his country. There’s oppportunity, and joy, to be found in humiliating the moderates. It doesn’t work on people without shame.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  07:27 PM

  9. Well, you have to give Mr. Frist and his pack credit.  Their outrage over Senator Durbin’s comments did in fact change the subject, which I’m sure was their goal all along.  Instead of talking about the horrendous scene witnessed by the FBI agent and repeated by Mr. Durbin on the Senate floor, we’re all debating whether he should have, or should not have, apologized.  When the issue fades, all most of us will remember is the debate surrounding Mr. Durbin’s remarks, and not the essense of those remarks.  How sad.

    Posted by DK  on  06/22  at  07:30 PM

  10. Ben, if I thought Dick Durbin was a coward I would criticize him. I would have preferred him not to issue anything that resembled an apology. But the Democrats have not ignored the issue of torture, or Abu Graib, or Guantanamo, they haven’t. Yes, it’s true the issue did not develope in the 2004 campaign. There are many reasons for that, the least of them that John Kerry didn’t understand the moral implications of that issue, or was afraid to raise it.

    But references to Durbin being a coward only make the right’s work easier, and make the media’s adoration of John McCain seem rational.

    I have no inside dope, but I think Durbin may have heard from some survivors of various types of horror who were genuinely, if wrongly, insulted by his initial remarks.

    Michael also makes the point that sometimes politically, certain gestures become required. The question is, as David suggests, why are we not able to muster quick organized support for someone like Durbin, support that he can put in the bank, support that makes it harder for all the bleeping Chris Wallaces to dive even deeper into that tank they’ve been trolling in for the Bush regime. And why do we assume that the issue dies here. It doesn’t. It won’t. It will be back. Let’s get ready for it, again.

    I agree, David, that one of those Powerline T-shirts that have so much fun with the idea of torture would have been a great weapon to put in the hands of Durbin. Too bad we didn’t.

    I’m trying to work something out with some other bloggers to see if there is some way we can carry the specific fight about Durbin’s initial speech forward by turning it into an attack on those who demanded an apology for his choice of words, while having no problem with the Bush administration’s choice of policies that seek to justify the most unAmerican, often illegal or unconstitutional behaviors on the basis that a president in wartime has the right to act with impunity outside of the purview of everything this country is supposed to stand for.

    If anyone has any ideas, or is interested in participating if we come up with a plan, please feel free to get in touch with me via my email address.

    Posted by Leah A  on  06/22  at  08:09 PM

  11. A commenter on Atrios’s site made an intriguing suggestion: because Americans have, in general, a tenuous grasp on the details of history, the range of examples is somewhat limited. The History Channel devotes something like 83% of its time to excruciatingly detailed programming on Nazis, so that’s an exception.

    As for the chilling effect of the manufactured outrage against Durbin: well, it’s done more than many things to make me accelerate my plans to get the hell out of this country. It shows that Standard Operating Practices—attack the critics, focus on the trivialities—now apply to the most disturbing elements of American policy.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  08:11 PM

  12. Leah A,

    I don’t know whether this counts as an idea, but Jeanne at Body and Soul wrote a fantastic Open Letter to Dick Durbin.  I’d like to see that turned into an internet petition with paper copies delivered to Durbin’s DC office as well as his district offices.

    Michael or anyone else,

    Steve Gilliard was going on about Daley too.  U don’t read Illinois papers or know enough about the local scene.  Could someone fill me in on what Richard Daley did and why.  Where was this covered?

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  08:20 PM

  13. Sorry about the second question.  I didn’t realize that black bold meant that there was a link.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  08:28 PM

  14. You know, the sick thing is that John McCain has done one honorable, hard, decent thing in his entire life, and his political career seems to have been wholly constituted of paying for it.

    But of course, instead of saying “What kind of sickass political party demonizes a man who spent years in a prison camp being tortured when he could have gone free” he’s chosen to go with “Well, gosh, I’d say something about how morally bankrupt my party is but it might hurt my electability, and besides, I was raised not to question my leaders”

    Except for the electability, this is probably the identical reasoning used by the men who tortured him.

    But hey, why get personal.

    Posted by julia  on  06/22  at  10:11 PM

  15. I agreed with Ben Alpers and David above, but am forced to concede some of Leah A’s points. However, I’d like to know who Durbin’s advisors are and what they were thinking? The man’s words were totally twisted to mean something completely different, and *he* apologizes for it? If Durbin did hear from people genuinely insulted by his remarks, as Leah suggests, he should’ve talked with them and had them read the text of his remarks, or simply reiterated his remarks in full. Is Howard Dean going to be the only Democrat in the public eye who will withstand openly malicious bullying?

    Everytime something like the Durbin incident happens, we set ourselves up for the wingnuts to try it again on someone else. I can’t remember the last time (since November!) that I’ve felt this outraged by the effects of wingnut propaganda, and I’m willing to contribute money and time to any effort to stop the Durbin incident from ending in this fashion.

    Posted by  on  06/22  at  10:14 PM

  16. While I was glad to see Durbin come out and call a spade a spade, I must admit I was disappointed to see him back off under criticism and even more disappointed by appeasement-merchants like Daley and Lieberman who sided with the Republican noise machine in saying Durbin was worse than Hitler for comparing U.S. soldiers to Nazis. Durbin has done what Kerry did and what countless liberal opponents of the Bush regime have done, he’s been moderate and gentlemanly and reasonable. The problem here is the Republicans are none of those things

    In the face of the knee jerk attacks from talk radio, right-wing blogsylvania and the chattering classes on Press the Meat, Durbin should have turned around and given them both barrels, Rude Pundit style and told Tim Russert and Bill First the rest that if they didn’t like listening to the capital “T” Truth about where America is heading, then they could kiss his rosey pink ass.

    Torture is torture, no matter what uniform the guy attaching the electrodes is wearing. A beating from a U.S. Marine guard is no less painful than a beating from an S.S. Private. Both are torture and both are equally wrong. Given how much the right loves to preach about the evils of “moral relativism” among lefties and liberals, one would think they would understand the idea that no matter who is doing it or why, torture is wrong. Not “an unfortunate necessity” or a “small price to pay for valuable intelligence” or “not as bad as what the Nazi, Soviets or Pol Pot did” but just WRONG.

    on a lighter, off-topic note, if I may blogwhore for a moment, the American Film Institute has released their list of the 100 greatest lines in American films - check the Woodshed for some suggested alternatives to the crap they have included from Dirty Dancing, Top Gun etc etc and see is you can name the films and actors.

    Posted by Reverend Paperboy  on  06/23  at  12:53 AM

  17. Durbin gained the respect of no one by his craven apology.  He lost the respect of millions.  His performance confirmed the suspicions of millions that Democrats are a bunch of brie-eating wimps.

    Read Arthur Silber’s contrast of Durbin’s shameful collapse with Robert LaFollette’s “Profile in Courage”.

    http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=716

    Better yet, get a copy of Profiles in Courage, read it, and take it to heart.

    It is one thing to be hated, it is another to be both hated and despised.

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  02:16 AM

  18. Leah A

    You wrote>>>>>I have no inside dope, but I think Durbin may have heard from some survivors of various types of horror who were genuinely, if wrongly, insulted by his initial remarks<<<

    I acknowledge, given your lack of information on the letters, that I’m posing a rhetorical question but why in the world would people who have been tortured object to Durbin’s comparison?  In their minds there must be some threshold measure of torture that separates, if you will, the men from the boys.  “ah you think THAT was torture?  Listen, in my day, WWII, the big one, you should seen……”

    And these are people we seed the moral high ground to?  They are certainly deserving of sympathy and compassion…..but I am going to hold off on endorsing their logic and, in fact, where I confront it personally, I am going to, respectfully, but firmly, note it is, grotesquely, flawed.

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  06:13 AM

  19. I voted for McCain, when I was still a member of that beknighted party in 2000. I knew that on most issues he was much more conservative than I, but he had a refreshing honesty missing in most Republican politicians. And of course, he wasn’t W! It’s now sad to see him kow-tow to the wing-nuts, at the expense of his integrity, to get the nomination in 2008. And it will be sadder for “Honest” John when he finally understands that it is all in vain.

    He’s sold his soul, and gets in return the continuing enmity of right, and is now despised by those who once admired him. A poor bargain indeed.

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  08:43 AM

  20. McCain’s been given a free ride too long.  Michael’s post is striking because none of the corporate media villagers will ever say what Michael correctly said about McCain’s total capitulation to the Bush Family Crime Syndicate.

    As for Durbin, I just don’t know what caused him to apologize for his statement.  His comments were directed at specific conduct and he made a reasonable comparison directed only to that specific conduct.  It is dishonest to interpret his statement to mean that the US is Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.  This is especially so when the same people who trashed Durbin came to the rescue of Durbin’s fellow senator, Bill Frist, when Frist needed to distance himself from his medical diagnosis of Teri Schiavo after the autopsy report showed how silly his diagnosis was.

    My only hypothesis, when comparing the treatment accorded Durbin and Frist, is that Pelosi, Biden, Lieberman, and sometimes Reid, put added pressure their own (e.g. Durbin) to capitulate and apologize because they are afraid of the Bush Family Crime Syndicate and the Syndicate’s enablers in the corporate media village. Our only solution: Pelosi, Biden, and Lieberman (the jury is out on Reid) deserve primary challenges.

    But of course, there is the news that our president is gay, if we merely use the “standards” of Edward Klein...http://mitchellfreedman.blogspot.com/2005/
    06/by-edward-klein-standards-president-is.html

    Posted by Mitchell Freedman  on  06/23  at  10:29 AM

  21. My only hypothesis, when comparing the treatment accorded Durbin and Frist, is that Pelosi, Biden, Lieberman, and sometimes Reid, put added pressure their own (e.g. Durbin) to capitulate and apologize

    I had thought I was far too old and jaded to ever be disappointed by a Democrat, but Pelosi has been a Big Fucking Disappointment in her new job. She might as well dress to match the wallpaper.

    I’m hoping Gavin Newsom runs for her seat next time she’s up. He’s the only Dem in many years by whom I’ve been shockingly undisappointed. Hated him out of principle until 2/14/2004, when he revealed himself to be the only California Democrat with a vestige of spine.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  06/23  at  10:36 AM

  22. Pelosi has been a Big Fucking Disappointment in her new job. She might as well dress to match the wallpaper.

    You’re thinking maybe of that scene in Garden State?

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  11:12 AM

  23. Heavens, no. I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to drown her in a bathtub.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  06/23  at  11:25 AM

  24. "to give any of Frist’s remarks on the subject the reply they deserve....[I]s the purview of the Rude Pundit.”

    http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

    Good stuff, thank you, Monsieur Berube!!

    Posted by david r mcirvine  on  06/23  at  11:52 AM

  25. Whew!  This blog (usually) discourages the drowning of Democrats in bathtubs.

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  11:58 AM

  26. Whew!  This blog (usually) discourages the drowning of Democrats in bathtubs.

    Good. I was beginning to wonder why we haven’t seen a photo of this blog and Grover Norquist together.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  06/23  at  12:57 PM

  27. Weren’t there going to be a new round of torture pics and videos released at some point in the near future?

    Posted by Kimmitt  on  06/23  at  01:10 PM

  28. More smoke, more mirrors.  More heat, less light. Rumsfeld cannot avoid the truth.

    Posted by The Heretik  on  06/23  at  01:32 PM

  29. Now that Durbin’s apologized for his poor choice of words, can we expect Karl Rove to apologize for explicitly stating that liberals want American soldiers to die?

    Like hell, suckers!

    We hem and haw, we qualify, we apologize, and we lose. They offend, they keep on offending, when asked to apologize they offend some more, and they win. You’d think sooner or later the lesson would begin to sink in, but no. I’m beginning to wonder whether the core problem for Democrats isn’t so much spinelessness as raw stupidity.

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  01:56 PM

  30. Such anger, such cynicism, Uncle Kvetch.  Karl Rove is an honorable man, and he will surely apologize.  Honest John McCain will see to it.

    Posted by Michael  on  06/23  at  02:19 PM

  31. Well, I just managed to lose my own comment in response to those of you kind of enough to address my previous comments. Sigh.

    I’ll try and regroup quickly.

    Abbey, yes I saw Jeanne’s letter and agree with every point she made. One of her commentators who is a Durbin constituent is talking about hand-delivering it to one of Durbin’s in-state offices. I would urge all of you to take a look at Jeanne’s post and the comments. TBogg drew some good comments from this same Durbin constituent that are a nice reminder of how much about Durbin is admirable. Sorry,no links; I’m cursed with a sick DSL connection that no one, least of all SBC, seems to be able to diagnose.

    Look, I agree with everyone that Durbin’s Tuesday speech was a mistake, will tend to confirm the outrageous attacks on him; I understand the anger, I feel it myself. All I’ve been trying to suggest is that the Durbin affair doesn’t have to end with his quasi-apology. We have a lot of ammunition here, we should be aiming at the McCains and the dirty, rotten rat fink sycophants in the media.

    I know that’s vague, but I’m working with some other folks to try and put together a specific mechanism by which to fight back, on behalf of Durbin.

    These guys are more vulnerable than they or we realize. Talk about your one trick pony - they only have a few moves, and those moves are beginning to seem so 2002 and 2004, don’t you know.

    Karl Rove’s remarks last night are an opportunity. We need to be able to ask in an organized, public way that can’t be entirely ignored (baby steps everyone, I’ll settle for not entirely) to stuff Rove’s comments about Democrats down McCain’s throat.

    I have some inside dope now, from a friend who worked for Senator Kennedy for years and still has contact on the hill, that the onslaught of outrage was something Durbin’s office had never seen before, much of it from clearly non-righwing sources. It shook up the Senator that he could have been so mis-understood. The wavering voice and near tears were quite real, she hears tell.

    Jon S, as for why actual survivors wouldn’t be on Durbin’s side, how many of those angry voices Durbin heard from had read or heard what he had actually said? Damn few, I’d wager. And not everyone is capable of the perspective of a Primo Levi, for instance, though, God knows, he and we paid a heavy price for that perspective. For me, the bottom line thought experiment is imagining the response of a Dwight D. Eisenhower upon reading that FBI agent’s description of the state of a prisoner being interrogated in an American facility, by Americans, and supposedly, for the greater good of American security. Who thinks it would have been an iota of an iota different from Durbin’s?

    Ushma K, thank-you for keeping an open mind. Some of us are trying to come up with more specifics, and I’ll be sure to let all who are interested know if we get something going.

    Posted by Leah A  on  06/23  at  04:06 PM

  32. Sorry--I’m frantically finishing my diss and so have to skim a lot these days, so I may have missed someone already saying this.

    But does it strike anybody as odd--no, as *totally* fucked up and scary--that neither any visible politicians nor any mainstream (or otherwise, as far as I know) journalists seem to recognize that the outcry against Durbin is predicated on a logical fallacy?  Durbin made a comparison of kind, not degree (I beleive in logic circles, this would be called a fallacy of composition).  He did not say that one Gitmo equals an entire network of concentration camps or gulags; he said that kinds of torture committed there were comparable to the kinds of torture in these other places.

    What is the state of public discourse when very, very smart people either can’t or won’t acknowledge the clearly, fundamentally flawed reasoning of Frist et al.?

    Posted by  on  06/23  at  04:44 PM

  33. What is the state of public discourse when very, very smart people either can’t or won’t acknowledge the clearly, fundamentally flawed reasoning of Frist et al.?

    Bad.  Really, really bad.

    Also, liberals are traitors who want our troops to die.

    Posted by Michael  on  06/23  at  05:43 PM

  34. I’ve always - or at least since I was older than 14 - thought talk of a looming fascist clampdown was silly.

    These days, with the increasing mainstreaming of eliminationist rhetoric, I’m starting to think the over-under is getting to the <1 year point. And I hate feeling that way: makes me feel like I need a tinfoil hat. But when O’Reilly actually calls for all Air America staffers to be imprisoned, and no one fires him…

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  06/23  at  06:08 PM

  35. And no one fires him?  Chris, that is such a pre-9/11 mindset.  With his Air America remarks, O’Reilly becomes the leading candidate for FCC chair when Kevin Martin’s term is up in June 2006.

    Posted by Michael  on  06/23  at  06:12 PM

  36. Chris, that is such a pre-9/11 mindset.

    Pre-9/11/73, I’m thinking.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  06/23  at  06:19 PM

  37. For everyone not steeped in Chicago politics, Richie is not very bright. He does not understand much outside of his domain and speaks from the hip without thought. That is why he said what he did about Durbin. Given that, he has turned Chicago into one beautiful, user friendly city and most people here cut him a lot of slack. As for Durbin, he is one of the best we have and the crap he is taking right now is uncalled for. At some point the Dems will learn you do not turn on your own.

    Posted by  on  06/24  at  02:57 PM

  38. Leslie--As one, myself, steeped in Chicago politics, I have to ask if you’ve been following the growing corruption scandal at which Daley seems to be the center.

    He hasn’t been a particularly good mayor. He’s merely followed a lot of other cities’ leads (community policing, fixing broken windows, replacing projects with mixed-income developments) and had some marginal successes here and there. Also, I live on the south side, and doubt you do. How “user friendly” is the intersection of Garfield and Halsted? Anyway, I think it’s high time to stop cutting that slack.

    Posted by Lee  on  06/24  at  10:49 PM

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