The Last Words on Durbin

I've now watched the growing blogstorm for a week or so, listened to the Sunday-morning talking head shows, heard a small horde of Republicans and Fox News types call for censure--all over Sen. Dick "The Turban" Durbin's remarks last Tuesday comparing US treatment of Gitmo detainees with Nazi, Soviet, and Khmer Rouge atrocities:

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.

Republicans are pulling their hair out and rending their clothes over this and I can't for a moment understand why.* Republicans should wind up Dick Durbin--along with his close friends Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Robert Byrd, Patrick Leahy, John Conyers, and Charles Rangel--and let them run off at the mouth from now until late November 2008. These clowns are the best thing to happen to the Republican Party in a generation.

As you might expect, Lileks and Iowahawk have the best--and funniest--takes on the affair. Lileks:

It shouldn’t surprise, really. To some on the hard left, the American soldier comes in two flavors: Grandpa, who died so France could someday take the month of August off to hit the beach, and the Lt. Calley variety who lights a thatch roof with his Zippo, lights his Marlboro with the same, and shoots the fleeing villagers with his Napalm Super Soaker. Those who do not fit the latter model are poor people who joined the military because they had no other options, and are thus to be pitied – unless they do something wrong, in which case economic and ethnic identities are forgotten, and their identity as a military operative trumps all. Vietnam is the template, as ever. Gitmo is a slo-mo My Lai.

And Iowahawk (read the whole thing):

Customer Relations Department
United Airlines
Elk Grove Village, IL

Dear Sir or Madam:

In the dark annals of human evil, history has recorded the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocides, and Stalin's mass starvation program. And now, United Airlines flight 671 from Reagan International to Chicago O'Hare on June 3rd, 2005. I know, because I am a survivor of that dark exemplar of man's cruelty to man.

Perhaps I should have known what I was in for when your brusque gate agent refused to issue an upgrade to me for the flight (despite being a Premier/1K member for over 10 years), or when your flight crew Gestapo confiscated my carry on Roll Tote (even though I had nearly fit it into the overhead bin). But the true measure of the horror did not dawn on me until me and my fellow passengers were left taxiing on the O'Hare tarmack for over twenty minutes in the Auschwitzian Airbus A320 cattlecar, in temperatures approaching 85 degrees, not knowing our fates or whether we would make it to our fundraising dinners.

Santayana once said, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." And I say to you and your fellow United criminals: "never again," unless you credit my account at least 2 flight segments for this travesty.

Sincerely,

Senator Richard J. Durbin
Washington, DC

cc: Human Rights Watch
cc: Amnesty International

Monk

* Okay, I can understand it: he slimed every member of the US armed forces, past and present, and defamed his entire country, giving aid and comfort to its enemies...but isn't that just what Democrats do? Members of the military should have thicker skins, and realize that we still have all the guns...

Update:Mark Steyn has some further opinions on the music used to "torture" Gitmo "detainees:"

Been following the latest horrifying stories from what Amnesty International calls the “gulag of our time”? John Kass of The Chicago Tribune was outraged by the news that records by Christina Aguilera had been played at Guantanamo at full volume in order to soften up detainees. He thought they should have used “Dance, Ballerina, Dance” by Vaughn Monroe, over and over and over.

Well, readers had plenty of suggestions of their own, and so the Tribune’s website put together a list of “Interro-Tunes” — the most effective songs for aural intimidation, mood music for jolting your jihadi. A lot were the usual suspects - like the Captain and Tennille’s blamelessly goofy “Muskrat Love”, which, as I recall, put the Queen to sleep at a White House gala, though the Duke of Edinburgh sat agog all the way to the end. Someone suggested Bob Dylan’s “Everybody Must Get Stoned”, which even on a single hearing sounds like it’s being played over and over. I don’t know what Mr Kass has against “Ballerina”, which is very pleasant in the Nat “King” Cole version. But he seems to think one burst of “Dance, ballerina, dance/And do your pirouette in rhythm with your aching heart” will have the Islamists howling for the off-switch and singing like canaries to the Feds. Who knows? I sang “Ballerina” myself once on the radio long ago, and, if it will discombobulate the inmates, I’m willing to dust off my arrangement and fly down to Guantanamo, if necessary dressed liked Christina Aguilera. If they want an encore, I’ll do my special culturally sensitive version of that Stevie Wonder classic, “My Sharia Amour”.

And I wish this story from Scrappleface was true:

Rumsfeld Promises Durbin Better Treatment at Gitmo
by Scott Ott

(2006-06-16) -- Just a day after Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin compared U.S. personnel at the military detention facility at Guantanamo to those who worked in Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags and in Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised the Illinois Senator that he would receive better treatment during his own Gitmo captivity.

"The unspeakable cruelties that Sen. Durbin decried on the Senate floor must stop before his own detention on treason charges," said Mr. Rumsfeld. "After all, Dick Durbin is an American citizen, not an ordinary enemy combatant bent on destroying this nation and increasing the danger to our troops by inflaming the passions of the Muslim world."

A spokesman said Sen. Durbin is still a free man and a patriot, and he has drafted legislation renaming a favorite Gitmo menu item to reflect his solidarity with the oppressed Muslim inmates.

Under the measure, the dish made of ground, spiced and fried chick peas would be called: "Freedom Falafel."

Monk

Last Last Word on Durbin: Chefjef writes:

What Durbin said was stupid and insulting. He should be officially censured by the Senate. He should also apologize to the public and to the military.

Chefjef

Real Last Last Word on Durbin: Done!