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Terrorists on Parade

By TChris, Section War on Terror
Posted on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 12:03:43 AM EST
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by TChris

Karl Rove, we're told, strives to turn a politician's weaknesses into strengths. George Bush has given him plenty to work with.

One presidential weakness has been an inability to obey the law or to respect fundamental human rights. And so his administration has whisked people away to secret prisons in foreign lands, all the while (for the sake of national security) refusing to acknowledge that it has done so. Until now.

Now the president wants to turn his use of secret detentions (probably accompanied by torture) into a virtue. He did it to protect us. So why isn't national security imperiled by yesterday's admission that his administration has held detainees in secret prisons? All fourteen detainees just happen to have exhausted their intelligence value in the same week, and so they're off to Guantanamo. Fourteen bad guys had to be hidden away to protect us, but now it's time to bring them out into the open so they can go on trial before one of the sham tribunals the president wants the legislature to endorse.

Why the sudden reveal of the gang of fourteen? The president's party is in danger of losing complete control of the government. It's time to convince the public that the president has saved our hides from dangerous terrorists. Hauling the evildoers to Guantanamo -- sort of a terrorist perp walk, without the cameras -- shows us that all the human rights violations, all the law-breaking, was worth it.

Don't think about it too hard, and maybe you'll believe that lawless presidential behavior is good for a democracy.

This post noted the notable absence of any reference to Osama bin Laden in the administration's updated plan to combat terrorism. What a difference a day makes. Now the president can't stop talking about Osama, again advancing a Rovian plot to turn a weakness into a strength. Perhaps he's counting on viewers of ABC's docu-lie (lie-udrama?), Path to 9/11, to blame Clinton for Bush's decision to divert the country's resources to Iraq when he should have been pursuing bin Laden. Maybe voters will forget that a Republican-controlled government not only has failed to capture or kill bin Laden since 9/11, but does nothing as Pakistan gives the Taliban safe harbor. Is that also Clinton's fault?

< Bush Guts Enforcement of Geneva Conventions | Authorized Interrogation Techniques >

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    • Terrorists on Parade | 3 comments (3 topical)
    Re: Terrorists on Parade (none / 0) (#1)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 05:28:03 AM EST
    From the post:
    So why isn't national security imperiled by yesterday's admission that his administration has held detainees in secret prisons?
    Because the Left and the MSM has already told everybody??

    Re: Terrorists on Parade (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 12:29:03 PM EST
    So there was some sort of delegation from the Middle East visiting Washington DC over the past two weeks and now, all of a sudden the 14 prisoners are transferred, new tapes have come out from Bin Laden,et al;Did the delegation bring the tapes or were some filmed here under Carl Rove's direction? I am so confused, disappointed and very suspicious of our government nowadays.

    Re: Terrorists on Parade (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 05:51:22 PM EST
    I watched bush giving his speech this morning on CNN, and was struck by his body language as much as by his words. Throughout his speech he was constantly shifting his weight, licking dry lips, and his eyes were jerking back and forth. He looked like he was sweating bullets. In short, the image he projected was of an insecure and very uncomfortable child forced to endure very unwelcome attention and repeating memes he knew were dishonest while caught in what he knew were lies. All of his words were probably factually correct, except that the conclusions he drew from them and the framing of the picture he did his best(?) to paint were an utter lie and misrepresentation of everything he has done for the past six years. I almost felt sorry for him, but I didn't. He knew what the score was, and is. He looked like an elementary school boy at confession, or one forced out in front of hot klieg lights barely prepared by a rovian puppeteer. Or shoved under a bus... perhaps by karl 'we will fu*k him' rove?

    Terrorists on Parade | 3 comments (3 topical)