From the little that I still follow Illinois politics, my impression of Durbin is that he's solid and quite liberal. I don't think the VRWC is going to find much easy dirt on him. In fact, I was just about to post about this "gotcha."
Guess who said this:
"I call on those who question the motives of the president and his national security advisors to join with the rest of America in presenting a united front to our enemies abroad."
--Senator Dick Durbin, in 1998, defending then-President Bill Clinton, when he attacked Iraq.
What's striking is how measured and uncontroversial this is. Nothing about "your tactics only aid terrorists." But he's the right-wing whipping boy of the moment, so we can look forward to hearing all sorts of crap about him.
(a) The standard defense of the Economist appears to me to be correct: It's the only weekly published in the US with a wide breadth in its articles on events around the world, even if it's depth is terribly suspect. Also, they were making serious noises about Darfur before almost anyone.
(b) No one here would ever make a joke about Dick. Now if his name were Cock Durbin...
I'm not an Economist reader, but they do deserve credit for being one of the only major publications to cover this Washington Post story on torture in Afghanistan from 2002. It's disturbing to see just how widely ignored this story was, especially considering all that has become known since then.
As a father of two whose own father has been dead for 18 years, I could have written a trenchant post, but I don't talk much about my personal life on my site beyond the very occasional baby pictures.
Durbin seems to have skirted very close to a line, but remained on the safe side of it. What he said, IIRC, is, "you could imagine this description of a detainee at gitmo to be the description of a prisoner in nasty regime X,Y, or Z" So, there's not a direct comparison there. But, at the same time, the right has pointed out, in it's own idiom, that such a prisoner would be living very well for a prionser in regime X,Y, or Z. It's understandable that they might make such an objection. Then, as I understand it, matters become more complicated because Frist and others maliciously misrepresent Durbin's comments, and then Kos goes and says gitmo is the same as Saddam's prisons, which is not something you can say based upon the evidence which Durbin presented.
Of course, the larger point is that simply having this conversation means something is wrong. Regardless of how bad our treatment of detainees is, it calls into question what values our nation stands for, which, at this point, I think is the subject of debate.
The effects of Durbin's remarks seem to have been to radically increase the media coverage and public awareness of the conditions at gitmo, and to bring to the surface a more abstract moral debate. Of course, the right is trying to center the debate around "democrats hate america and our troops," which is not the most effective way to have the discussion which Durbin was trying to provoke. So, net positive or net negative? I'm unsure.
Micheal, I think in the short term it might come off as a negative, but in the long term, nobody's going to remember what Durbin himself said, especially since he's not too widely known. But it increases awareness, however uncomfortable, of the administration's policies w/r/t our detainees. I think that this is a net positive.
If it were October of 2006, I think it might be a disaster. But we're so far from any sort of national election that we can afford to skirt that line you mention.
Also, there's the argument that the only way to get press coverage on this issue (since we have a media that assumes people (a) already know about this stuff and (b) don't want to hear this stuff) is to make a controversial statement like Durbin's.
The thing is, Durbin is completely right. Back up to before 9/11. If you had read that description, you would have assumed that it was taking place in any number of repressive regimes, including the ones he mentioned. That the Nazis did much worse things pretty much assumes they'd have done the acts described in the passage as well.
However, pre-9/11, few Americans would have believed it was happening under the authority of the US. Now those revelations, while sickening, aren't really very surprising and that is tragic. We've moved from "we don't do that" to "that isn't really that bad." What better indication of the degradation of the moral standing of America that the main rebuttal seems to be, "Hey, we are not as bad as the Nazis." Well, mighty low bar to clear, that.
The outrage is wholly manufactured and utterly inane. If I had a quarter in my pocket for every time I'd heard the Democratic Party compared to the Soviets, I wouldn't be able to move.
Michael, what you have written would be all well and good if Durbin hadn't just walked back his remarks. As it is, we still live in a society where not only is it inappropriate to demand accountability for those people who do not prohibit torture and mutilation as a matter of policy, but it is perhaps more inappropriate to point out that those societies that allowed this to happen have also allowed very bad things to happen in their name.
However, it is telling that this line of attack from the defenders of administration policy is so predictable and well-publicized, because that means they've had to trot it out quite a lot. They may get a lot of people to say that they didn't mean what they said (even though they didn't even say the statements that they are recanting), but that only means that there is an increasing number of people out there saying these unacceptable and yet very necessary things.
As always, my point: grow a pair, America! Someone needs to find out exactly what the right would do to that person who didn't back down from a remark like Durbin made.
Of course he's right. What's more, his response, if you read the whole thing, sounds like it's motivated by a genuine love for his country. I think Michael and I were just speaking from a practical standpoint, the Republican noise machine being what it is.
I agree with diddy here, and Howard Dean seems to understand this: backing down is the worst thing you can do, and if you don't back down, the core of what you said ends up getting some attention. Look at that LA Times article. Gingrich says that Durbin's remarks put Americans in uniform at risk?! Can we really not make him eat that?
Watching our leadership, I'm continually reminded of a story (possibly apocryphal) told about Kiki Vanderwe. Supposedly, he was getting punked in game after game, because he never fought back. One game, his coach finally had it, and said, "Kiki, next time down the court, you better hit someone hard, or I'm sitting you. You better get a technical." So Kiki dutifully hit someone in the face, under the basket, in front of the ref. No call. So the next time down the court, he does the same thing, and gets called for the foul and tossed from the game. As he's leaving, the guy who got hit asked the ref, "You saw it the first time; why didn't you call it?" The ref replied, "Hell, I figured if Kiki was hitting you, you must have deserved it."
The point of the story, usually, is that Kiki Vanderwe was widely recognized as a really decent guy. The point of the story, for me, is that sometimes you've got to hit someone, and it really doesn't matter much who it is. I wish our leadership would figure that out.
well, it seems what Durbin is really apologizing for is that some people misunderstood him. Which is a stupid thing, in politics, to apologize for. But it doesn't seem like he's really retracting his remarks.
pre-9/11, few Americans would have believed it was happening under the authority of the US. Now those revelations, while sickening, aren't really very surprising and that is tragic
Apo, I think there have always been people who believed that the rough/abusive treatment of prisoners is acceptable, and that's the larger moral debate I'm referring to. But that's also why the reaction again Durbin isn't completely manufactured, because these people accept harsh/abusive treatment, but not hard torture. From their perspective, Durbin was holding up something they condone but comparing it to something they condemn.
Dick Durbin's great, despite the dubious name. The Economist is indefensible. The fact that they cover portions of the world that nobody else writes about makes it worse, not better. If there was no Economist then blowhard businessmen would know perfectly well that they don't know anything about, say, Bolivia. But thanks to the world's most overrated newsmagazine's regular practice of drive-by reporting on the third world in which the solution is invariably deregulation and low taxes, they get to think of themselves as incredibly well-informed via a mechanism that does nothing but re-enforce their own biases.
I don't know how I've ended up in the role of "Economist defender," but I don't think that's quite right. It usually seems very easy to separate their descriptive reporting from their prescriptive. I agree that their ideology is simple-minded, wrong, to be opposed when necessary, etc. But that doesn't mean their factual reporting is valueless. It comes down to an empirical question of how much accurate information can be extracted while recognizing the magazine's biases.
Maybe the Economist would be better if they didn't make editorial interventions into their story selection and instead allowed the best stories to rise naturally to the top of an unregulated free market of ideas.
Why should their reporters' hard-earned words be subject to confiscation or apportioned according to the whims of some elitist bureaucracy? The planned magazine just doesn't work.
*craps in open thread*
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:21 AM
Not art.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:22 AM
Fuck! I was just coming to call it art. I hate being too slow on my own blog.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:23 AM
From the little that I still follow Illinois politics, my impression of Durbin is that he's solid and quite liberal. I don't think the VRWC is going to find much easy dirt on him. In fact, I was just about to post about this "gotcha."
What's striking is how measured and uncontroversial this is. Nothing about "your tactics only aid terrorists." But he's the right-wing whipping boy of the moment, so we can look forward to hearing all sorts of crap about him.
Maybe Unf can tell us more...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:29 AM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:38 AM
(a) The standard defense of the Economist appears to me to be correct: It's the only weekly published in the US with a wide breadth in its articles on events around the world, even if it's depth is terribly suspect. Also, they were making serious noises about Darfur before almost anyone.
(b) No one here would ever make a joke about Dick. Now if his name were Cock Durbin...
(c) Kevin Drum isn't anyone?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:46 AM
I'm not an Economist reader, but they do deserve credit for being one of the only major publications to cover this Washington Post story on torture in Afghanistan from 2002. It's disturbing to see just how widely ignored this story was, especially considering all that has become known since then.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 10:59 AM
I meant on this blog, w/d.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:09 AM
I don't know though, I bet Alameida could have cooked up a good father's day post.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:12 AM
I have mixed feelings about the mixed-feelings FD posts. (c) was prompted by reading Jesse's, which I don't mean in any way as a criticism.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:14 AM
As a father of two whose own father has been dead for 18 years, I could have written a trenchant post, but I don't talk much about my personal life on my site beyond the very occasional baby pictures.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:18 AM
Durbin seems to have skirted very close to a line, but remained on the safe side of it. What he said, IIRC, is, "you could imagine this description of a detainee at gitmo to be the description of a prisoner in nasty regime X,Y, or Z" So, there's not a direct comparison there. But, at the same time, the right has pointed out, in it's own idiom, that such a prisoner would be living very well for a prionser in regime X,Y, or Z. It's understandable that they might make such an objection. Then, as I understand it, matters become more complicated because Frist and others maliciously misrepresent Durbin's comments, and then Kos goes and says gitmo is the same as Saddam's prisons, which is not something you can say based upon the evidence which Durbin presented.
Of course, the larger point is that simply having this conversation means something is wrong. Regardless of how bad our treatment of detainees is, it calls into question what values our nation stands for, which, at this point, I think is the subject of debate.
The effects of Durbin's remarks seem to have been to radically increase the media coverage and public awareness of the conditions at gitmo, and to bring to the surface a more abstract moral debate. Of course, the right is trying to center the debate around "democrats hate america and our troops," which is not the most effective way to have the discussion which Durbin was trying to provoke. So, net positive or net negative? I'm unsure.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:18 AM
Yeah, I knew you meant on the blog, but I didn't have anything else to say to (c), and I was striving for completeness.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:22 AM
Micheal, I think in the short term it might come off as a negative, but in the long term, nobody's going to remember what Durbin himself said, especially since he's not too widely known. But it increases awareness, however uncomfortable, of the administration's policies w/r/t our detainees. I think that this is a net positive.
If it were October of 2006, I think it might be a disaster. But we're so far from any sort of national election that we can afford to skirt that line you mention.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:25 AM
Also, there's the argument that the only way to get press coverage on this issue (since we have a media that assumes people (a) already know about this stuff and (b) don't want to hear this stuff) is to make a controversial statement like Durbin's.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:27 AM
The thing is, Durbin is completely right. Back up to before 9/11. If you had read that description, you would have assumed that it was taking place in any number of repressive regimes, including the ones he mentioned. That the Nazis did much worse things pretty much assumes they'd have done the acts described in the passage as well.
However, pre-9/11, few Americans would have believed it was happening under the authority of the US. Now those revelations, while sickening, aren't really very surprising and that is tragic. We've moved from "we don't do that" to "that isn't really that bad." What better indication of the degradation of the moral standing of America that the main rebuttal seems to be, "Hey, we are not as bad as the Nazis." Well, mighty low bar to clear, that.
The outrage is wholly manufactured and utterly inane. If I had a quarter in my pocket for every time I'd heard the Democratic Party compared to the Soviets, I wouldn't be able to move.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:30 AM
Michael, what you have written would be all well and good if Durbin hadn't just walked back his remarks. As it is, we still live in a society where not only is it inappropriate to demand accountability for those people who do not prohibit torture and mutilation as a matter of policy, but it is perhaps more inappropriate to point out that those societies that allowed this to happen have also allowed very bad things to happen in their name.
However, it is telling that this line of attack from the defenders of administration policy is so predictable and well-publicized, because that means they've had to trot it out quite a lot. They may get a lot of people to say that they didn't mean what they said (even though they didn't even say the statements that they are recanting), but that only means that there is an increasing number of people out there saying these unacceptable and yet very necessary things.
As always, my point: grow a pair, America! Someone needs to find out exactly what the right would do to that person who didn't back down from a remark like Durbin made.
Posted by diddy | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:33 AM
Of course he's right. What's more, his response, if you read the whole thing, sounds like it's motivated by a genuine love for his country. I think Michael and I were just speaking from a practical standpoint, the Republican noise machine being what it is.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:33 AM
I agree with diddy here, and Howard Dean seems to understand this: backing down is the worst thing you can do, and if you don't back down, the core of what you said ends up getting some attention. Look at that LA Times article. Gingrich says that Durbin's remarks put Americans in uniform at risk?! Can we really not make him eat that?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:37 AM
Katherine posted contact info for Durbin here. Probably worthwhile to express support for him, especially you Illinois natives.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:45 AM
backing down is the worst thing you can do
Watching our leadership, I'm continually reminded of a story (possibly apocryphal) told about Kiki Vanderwe. Supposedly, he was getting punked in game after game, because he never fought back. One game, his coach finally had it, and said, "Kiki, next time down the court, you better hit someone hard, or I'm sitting you. You better get a technical." So Kiki dutifully hit someone in the face, under the basket, in front of the ref. No call. So the next time down the court, he does the same thing, and gets called for the foul and tossed from the game. As he's leaving, the guy who got hit asked the ref, "You saw it the first time; why didn't you call it?" The ref replied, "Hell, I figured if Kiki was hitting you, you must have deserved it."
The point of the story, usually, is that Kiki Vanderwe was widely recognized as a really decent guy. The point of the story, for me, is that sometimes you've got to hit someone, and it really doesn't matter much who it is. I wish our leadership would figure that out.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:47 AM
well, it seems what Durbin is really apologizing for is that some people misunderstood him. Which is a stupid thing, in politics, to apologize for. But it doesn't seem like he's really retracting his remarks.
pre-9/11, few Americans would have believed it was happening under the authority of the US. Now those revelations, while sickening, aren't really very surprising and that is tragic
Apo, I think there have always been people who believed that the rough/abusive treatment of prisoners is acceptable, and that's the larger moral debate I'm referring to. But that's also why the reaction again Durbin isn't completely manufactured, because these people accept harsh/abusive treatment, but not hard torture. From their perspective, Durbin was holding up something they condone but comparing it to something they condemn.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:50 AM
Vandeweghe
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:50 AM
I knew I should have google checked it. But I felt inhibited by ogged's mocking of the bourgeois commenter's internalized Wolfson.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:54 AM
First guy to make Tim swallow his tongue gets five bucks.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 11:56 AM
I'm unclear on the rules of the challenge, Ogged. Do I have to make Tim swallow his tongue or mine?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 12:04 PM
Dick Durbin's great, despite the dubious name. The Economist is indefensible. The fact that they cover portions of the world that nobody else writes about makes it worse, not better. If there was no Economist then blowhard businessmen would know perfectly well that they don't know anything about, say, Bolivia. But thanks to the world's most overrated newsmagazine's regular practice of drive-by reporting on the third world in which the solution is invariably deregulation and low taxes, they get to think of themselves as incredibly well-informed via a mechanism that does nothing but re-enforce their own biases.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 1:07 PM
I don't know how I've ended up in the role of "Economist defender," but I don't think that's quite right. It usually seems very easy to separate their descriptive reporting from their prescriptive. I agree that their ideology is simple-minded, wrong, to be opposed when necessary, etc. But that doesn't mean their factual reporting is valueless. It comes down to an empirical question of how much accurate information can be extracted while recognizing the magazine's biases.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 1:13 PM
Maybe the Economist would be better if they didn't make editorial interventions into their story selection and instead allowed the best stories to rise naturally to the top of an unregulated free market of ideas.
Why should their reporters' hard-earned words be subject to confiscation or apportioned according to the whims of some elitist bureaucracy? The planned magazine just doesn't work.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 2:08 PM
Making jokes about his name counts.
Odd birch injures harp
Hebraic jodhpur rinds
A crab jodhpur rid shine
Acerb did his john purr
Bach did nip her jurors
Dr John is up rabid Cher
ABC did rip Rush re John
Jacob hired prudish RN
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 2:08 PM
Nice, eb.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 2:21 PM
Hey, man. Some of my best friends are fathers.
Posted by Brett | Link to this comment | 06-21-05 5:50 PM