Dick Cheney had earlier claimed that some classified CIA documents supported his contention that torture provided information which prevented a terrorist attack, contradicting a report from the CIA’s inspector general. A few days ago Senator Carl Levin reviewed the documents and stated that Cheney’s claims about the classified documents were untrue. Greg Sargent has reviewed an interview Cheney gave with Fox last night, finding that Cheney has backed away from his claims:
There’s a very revealing moment buried in an interview that Dick Cheney gave to Fox News last night that really gives away his game plan on torture.
Specifically: Cheney seemed to edge away from the claim that the documents he’s asking the CIA to declassify will prove unequivocally that torture worked.
The key moment came when his interviewer said: “You want some documents declassified having to do with waterboarding.” Cheney replied:
“Yes, but the way I would describe them is they have to do with the detainee program, the interrogation program. It’s not just waterboarding. It’s the interrogation program that we used for high-value detainees. There were two reports done that summarize what we learned from that program, and I think they provide a balanced view.”
Bear with me here, because this is crucial. Cheney is carefully saying that the documents summarize what we learned from the overall interrogation program. Torture, of course, was only a component of that program. So he’s clearly saying that the docs summarize what was learned from a program that included non-torture techniques, too.
Here’s why this is important. It dovetails precisely with what Senator Carl Levin, who has also seen these docs, says about them. Levin claims the docs don’t do anything to “connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques.”
My bet is Cheney is planning to cite the valuable intel in the docs and say that the program — of which torture was only a part — was responsible for producing it. He’ll fudge the question of whether the torture itself was actually responsible for generating that information. Cheney is as experienced as any Washington hand at using precise language to obfsucate, and this is the game plan. You heard it here first.
The contest was about who could make a "paper airplane" go farther, not about how far could a sheet of paper go, in any form. So Jeff was not a hero. He cheated! just as the people who tanked the economy with their mortgage derivatives skims. It's very popular, nowadays, to change the rules to win, and more sad than that, those who do, win the admiration of dupes.
--JHT
Let me atempt to represent the conservative and liberal world-views (in an admittedly strange topic) of NR participants in an imaginary dialogue among some usual NR suspects:
Reminder of the...: Good call, JHT
Lonestar: Am I a dupe for wondering . . . (don't answer that!) . . . what are the limitations or boundaries or rules of design for an airplane? (And thus for a paper airplane.) Will something organic someday qualify? Something more fractalish? Something not bilaterally symmetrical, as in a crushed almost-sphere of material?
Knackers: In the movie, the teacher didn't stipulate any specific rules such as paper airplane had to be such and such size and shape. All the kids did what they knew, what they had seen before that was conventional, imitative and in the box. A sphere has the smallest enclosed volume for the smallest surface area of any shape and they can be thrust in any direction which would be a major advantage for space travel. Perhaps in the future there will be new materials beyond what we know today. Perhaps we will travel around as light spheres zipping here and there not having to load heavy bodies into heavy floating tanks.
Besides, everyone knows the Borg Sphere is used by the Borg Collective and is a large spherical vessel having transwarp capabilty.
Go Jeffy! You weren't focused on winning you were focused on dreaming....
Nando: Noo, not a dupe, it was taken as a matter of common knowledge rather than inspiration that a ball can be thrown further than a paper airplane can float and, although cute, the kid didn't design anything or do anything that the rest of the class didn't already know. His 'thinking outside of the box' wasn't in plane design, it was in how to find a loophole in order to win. The next contest will not be a paper airplane flying contest, it will be a paper ball throwing contest with a bunch of dummies crushing paper and throwing it.
Knackers: In that case, be sure that little Johnny joins the contest. He'll be the last participant and wet the paper so the resulting heavier ball can acquire more kinetic energy than the dry ones. Hence little Johnny wins, and if there's no tap water to wet the paper he'll pee on it ;-)
JHT: Exactly Nando! Besides, the movie was presented not as an example of great airplane design, but as an example in good thinking to be followed. And what was the example: disregarding the implied rules of the game which were, making a paper airplane.
Everyone knows what an airplane looks like, and what the word means.
There are many things that fly, but they are not called airplanes. A ball, a blimp, a helicopter, a dart flies, no one call them airplanes.
If a pitcher throws a tennis ball, he broke the rules, despite the fact that he threw a ball, and, probably, there are no written rule against it. It's the spirit of the game, the trust of the participants which was violated, as it was in the mortgage debacle, which was done legally, although in full dishonesty and disregard for others.
Republicans seem more sophisticated in breaking rules and with more catastrophic results for the country. Democrats tend to be blundering crooks like Blago.
JHT: Knackers, the ball trick is common knowlege to kids. I have two boys that had that one figured out by the time they got to first grade. The story was almost certainly a story made up by an adult unfamiliar with kids in order to make an example of thinking outside of the box. That author might consider doing a little thinking outside of the box of their own.
Michigan-Man: i couldn't disagree more, Nannie. I'll take that kid any day over those who can't think outside of the the limits imposed by the 'authorities' and rule makers.
The next contest won't be anything like what you imagined but will now have to include limits that have been expanded pushed into brand new territory by those who DO dare to think such things to include such thinking, not restrict it.
And i do speak from experience having been fortunate enough to have been selected for and then extensively trained in honing/perfecting those very abilities ....to indeed think not only outside of the box but outside the tetrahemihexahedron. It's a very big world out there.
Btw here are a few other forms that can be made from folded paper which may or may not fly better than a wadded up piece. Who can say?
Nando: I can usually win at scrabble by not connecting my letters to other words if I can convince the scrabble police that they're limiting me too much with their boring game rules.
Lonestar: In my school days there still was a place for little Johnnies. Teachers gave a few extra tasks or supplied books to read, when you had finished classwork an hour or more, before classmates did. They knew to keep up interest - provide nutritive food for thought :-)
Hence the change to treadmill education with multiple choice answers to be ticked was seen as retrograde development. Nowadays, help with education consists of teaching the technique of giving satisfactory answers instead of providing fundamental insight ;-)
With the economic downturn, maybe there's more opportunity for attention regarding the little Johnnies. An invention (like the wheel) has to be made only once...
Knackers: Hey! How come everyone raves about this guy or gal who invented the wheel?
Let's give some credit to the one who invented the axle. A wheel without an axle ain't worth a damn. ;))
Ray: It's actually the opposite in my locale to Lonestar's. Things got worse for awhile after I was out of school, but maybe because of seeing so much failure, they started a big overhaul of the schools and some are impressive. Hopefully, money problems won't kill the positive momentum.
They have also gone back to more rote education for the most basic facts for young children, though, in areas they found they needed to. Spoon feeding knowledge might be useless in some areas, but it's so much faster in learning to read or in learning basic facts, that it's made the difference for some kids in whether they learn at all.
Ironmann: There are quite a few articles on the performance of students in math, science etc. per country. The statistics might have helped to improve schooling.
But once in the profession that's loved, that might present a conflict with commercial interests. Such a conflict rarely arises in professions chosen for the salary only.
It won't be difficult to find a few reports on improving grades at universities like Cornell, Yale, Harvard etc. - by learning how to respond and often the graduates wind up in legislative functions.
A major issue is learning to observe properly, to interpret the observations and to draw conclusions in such a way that room is left to appreciate different perspectives, and to be able to discuss them. That would end stuffing the mind but also end blind belief - IOW it would start an era of little Johnnies.
Nando: Our schools are crowded with little Johnnies that crinkle paper, etc. only because they aren't able to think, not because they can, and they make it very hard for teachers to give enough time to thoughtful students. That's the littlejohnny rub, at least in the US.
Canman: Almost all of my higher education consisted of tests requiring answers in essay form ...'explain in your own words'. I hated it, that's why I like my responses here short... and curt: Earlier, i had a college science prof who did much the same ...required that you actually demonstrate that you knew and understood. He also gave us 'multiply choice' tests ... but with his own spin: each question had four answers ...A,B,C,D ...and you had to answer each with T/F. None might be correct ...all might be correct ...or any combination ...so the result was that there were4 points for each question. And the real kicker was ...you got -1 for each one you answered incorrectly! one could actually end up with a score of -400 on a 100 question test. As he explained ...he was teaching us to NOT guess. And it worked. So yes ... that prof was indeed a little johnny himself ...and fit the stereotype of the absent minded prof exactly ...einstein hair and all. He reminded me of Prof Irwin Corey ... [he may have been the inspiration for the comedian] ;)
And ...he loved puns and bad jokes ...so one had to pay attention to everything he said ... which resulted in ... 'getting' the subject matter the first time around. I found i didn't have to 'study' ... as he had a way of keeping my attention and focus completely ... and the data just flowed in. He insisted one be present. Made class a gas ... one of the best instructors/mentors i had. Thanks prof. I bow.
Skyane: The 'rule makers/authoritarians' always object to and fight innovation and 'free thinking'. it's a control issue. Seems to me that the Republican tend to be the parry of control freaks, those who like to impose 'rules' and have their minions fall in line, march in step. No thanks.
JHT: Not when it comes to making money. Their economic philosophy is the law of the jungle: let the strong feed on the weak, the sick, the stupid, the uneducated. Their only compassion seems reserved for the unborn.
Sure, they believe in control, and law and order for the poor, guy, colored, and immigrants, but the wealthy should have no constrains in this land which belongs to free and brave rich white men.
Kemjeff : All the more reason to resist the 'authority' the demcoarts [mis]re-present.
Appears to me that those in 'authority' are often so concerned with maintaining their control and so short-sighted in that end that they don't pay attention to or value the bigger, long-term picture. Which then often results in the collapse, an implosion actually of their own constructions, from their own weight. Nothing new.
'tis the rise and the fall of empires/civilizations.
Even in nature the preying of/on the weak by the strong does have limits/balances/checks built in. There is a control function in play, all taking place within a larger, encompassing system. The successful predator is not the one who eliminates its prey, but one who achieves a balance. An equilibrium with all the elements. There is a relationship in play which is larger than each/any which serves both/all. That's ole ma nature. What works continues ... what doesn't ends.
Canman: 'tis the rise and the fall of empires/civilizations. And marriages. :-)
molotove: SPeaking of 'resisting authority', religious and political figures and their projected authority are definitely to be resisted or at least questioned, as it is their control trips internalized, among other things, which prevent us from seeing what is the case. By resisting the external authority, we come to see how enslaved we are internally and can free ourselves.
In the arguments here, there are other things at play. Afaict, all of you have something to say. The "rules" in the paper airplane game are not designed to oppress and control but to foster excellence in design. When "thinking outside the box" abandons that excellence, then we have only gaming the system to win.
When extended back into the political realm, gaming the system to win just means exploiting and parasitizing others in support of ignoble tendencies such as greed and power (over others). As if happiness were a zero-sum game, and one could only be more happy if someone else were less happy. Whereas encouraging a talent for design could make everyone happier.
And yes, encouraging a thinking outside the box can do that too, even if "talent" is not immediately obvious in the outcome.
kemjeff: well ... that wasn't at all what i meant. I didn't go with 'all authority' for that very reason, thinking it might be misinterpreted in exactly that way. Now that i think about it, i should have gone that way after all, as 'resisting all authority' would include questioning one's own sense of authority....
Last Sunday here it was cloudy and drizzly, and early in the morning, the village was deserted. In my walk I only met a young mother jogging and pushing a carriage. It was one of those with wheels as big as bicycle's wheels. She was moving at a good clip, and didn't say good morning, but the toddler gave me a toothless grin.
Then, a few minutes later, my friend Joe parked his truck across the street and waited for me. I think he wanted me to see that he had grown a beard because instead of saying good morning he asked if I noticed something new.
To be contrary, I said, "Yeah you washed your truck."
He shook his head, and called me an asshole.
"My wife likes it," he said.
"She should. It needed it. It needs painting too." His truck was red once, but now it has the color of a picture of Saudi Arabia taken from space. Joe is 85, and his truck is half his age, I think.
Joe was born In Brooklyn to Italian Immigrants, and he fought in the Pacific. He has told me more times than I care to hear it, how two guys in his platoon looked for Japanese wounded to finish them off after every battle.
Every time he tells me that, I say to him that they were Boddhisattvas sending Buddhists to Nirvana. I had to explain the joke a few times, but know he knows the terms, and we can discuss if his buddies were doing an evil, or good deed.
Joe was a Catholic, but what he saw in the war made him an atheist. He doesn't believe in life after death either. He is one of many soldiers liberated from superstition by war.
A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military shot two soldiers outside an Arkansas recruiting station, killing one, police said Monday.
“This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that’s why he did what he did,” Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said in a phone interview.
“He has converted to (Islam) here in the past few years,” Hastings said. “We’re not completely clear on what he was upset about. He had never been in the military.
“He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them. That’s what he said.”
While it might aggravate some readers on the left, I do try to quote conservatives when they are making sense. Perhaps I have a fantasy that such positive reinforcement will contribute to improving the sanity of the right wing. In that vein I quoted from Dick Cheney in my previous post. It is often the case that I can find material to quote from most politicians that I both agree with and disagree with, I’m not sure that I ever posted anything from Sarah Palin which I agreed with. Finally I found something worthwhile:
“I feel sorrow for the Tiller family. I respect the sanctity of life and the tragedy that took place today in Kansas clearly violates respect for life. This murder also damages the positive message of life, for the unborn, and for those living. Ask yourself, ‘What will those who have not yet decided personally where they stand on this issue take away from today’s event in Kansas?’ Regardless of my strong objection to Dr. Tiller’s abortion practices, violence is never an answer in advancing the pro-life message.”
Along similar lines, TeamSarah.org founder and Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser released the following statement about the killing yesterday:
“The Susan B. Anthony List condemns this anti-life act in the strongest of terms. The heart of the pro-life movement is one founded in love. Without this driving powerful center no justice can possibly be achieved. Authentic progress in women’s rights has always encompassed the protection of human rights of every person across the board. The rights of one human being can never be honored by diminishing or ignoring the rights of another. This week as we gather for our annual June Tea event, themed Love Lets Live, we will lift up George Tiller’s loved ones in prayer.”
As I noted previously, there has been both unfortunate support from some on the right as well as opposition from others for this act of right wing terrorism. The blogosphere, especially in the comments, can easily amplify the views of a noisy minority and hopefully the comments supporting this type of terrorism do represent a tiny minority on the right.
Some additional sane views from the right on this issue, with Allahpundit followed by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
I could say there are no Bill Ayers types on our side, but I can’t; I wish I could say there are no right-wing nutroots degenerates online cheering them on, but I can’t say that either. As for those who condemn the murder while merrily hoping that he’s burning in hell, let a poor confused atheist ask you this: Isn’t the proper Christian response to any death to pray that God will have mercy on a flawed, fallible sinner, who’s now at last seen the error of his ways? Tiller might have changed his mind about abortion and repented in years to come but his killer’s deprived him of the chance. No prayers that God will take that into consideration?–Allahpundit
The murder of George Tiller at his church is a heinous crime, without any sense or justice. Regardless of how one feels about George Tiller’s profession, his murderer is nothing more than a domestic terrorist — someone attempting to impose by force a policy that one cannot get in place through democratic means. Tiller’s killer is no better than William Ayers, Kathleen Soliah, and Eric Rudolph, people who attempted to use violence for their extremist ends. Those who value life know that murder is the antithesis of the pro-life movement.–Ed Morrissey
The far right wing ties of the accused killer have been revealed today. While many conservatives are condemning this, there continues to be signs of support from some on the right. Right Wing Watch has video and text on Randall Terry’s press conference at the National Press Club “to discuss how the pro-life movement should deal with Dr. [George] Tiller’s death” and defend his statement that Tiller essentially deserved to die because he was a “mass-murder.”
While there have been far more vile responses from some on the right who have condoned this act of terrorism (which I won’t bother to give any publicity to) one of the more absurd arguments has been that this coverage given to right wing terrorism somehow justifies the bizzare reaction on the right to the report from the Department of Homeland Security on right wing terrorism. This act actually verifies the fact that right wing terrorism is a real problem, with this being only one example. This demonstrates that the Department of Homeland Security had reason to prepare a report on right wing terrorism. Of course conservatives who are bringing up the report ignore the facts that DHS prepared reports on both far left and far right wing terrorism, and that the recently declassified reports were prepared by a Bush appointee.
Eventually, I suspect many conservatives will come around to this "live and let live" position on gay marriage - especially after various states enact it and people grow comfortable with the reality that it's not actually destroying society any more than, say, showing Elvis from the waist down. - Jon Henke
Dick Cheney said a lot of things I don’t agree with, but he did repeat his support for gay marriage. While he is undoubtedly influenced by having a gay daughter, hopefully Cheney will be able to convince other conservatives to reconsider their position:
Speaking at the National Press Club for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation journalism awards, Cheney was asked about recent rulings and legislative action in Iowa and elsewhere that allowed for gay couples to legally wed.
“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” replied the former V.P. “As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. … But I don’t have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.”
Enlightenment can be defined many ways and it's many different things to different people. Enlightenment is, also, in the last resort, an opinion. The opinion a brain has about having achieved a blissful, frictionless functionality. Some seekers expect too much from that word. Some seekers may be enlightened, but will never admit it to themselves, nor others. Self-certification is not for them. They need a teacher to pronounce them done.
It's far easier to become a war hero than a spiritual one.
A couple of years back, I went to get a hair cut. I sat next to a very old gent. The barber call me to his chair, and I pointed to the old man and said, "He was here first."
"He is just sitting there. You're next, He comes once or twice a week and sits there for a while. He lives next door in the old folks home. He is a war hero, you know."
On hearing that the old man came to life. "I was a pilot. I shot down five Japanese Zeros." With trembling hand he took out from his shirt pocked a clipped newspaper article. The paper was yellow with age. It's headline read: "Hometown Hero back from the Pacific." It had the picture of a youth that he no longer resembled, in any way. I read it, returned it to him, and patted his shoulder. "Glad to have met you, you are the first Ace I meet."
"Have I showed you my medals?"
"No"
" Well, I'll go next door and get them. Don't leave." He slowly walked away as if stepping on thin ice.
"He won't be back. He'll forget about you, and his medals before he gets there. He has been coming here for three months. He always leaves to get his medals, but I haven't seen the medals, yet."
"Soon he'll forget he was a war hero," I said.
"Either that, or he'll die soon. He is in his eighties, and not healthy at all."
Fame is splendid, like fireworks, but just as brief, and then the hero fights anonymity's gray cloud until he dies.
I never saw the war hero again. He stopped coming to the barbershop. The barber didn't know why. The barber himself died from a stroke last year. He was only fifty five.
All that you need to be a hero is a newspaper clip, that says that you are one. Whose opinion do you need to consider yourself enlightened before your whimpering end catches up with you?
While it now appears that people around Obama are happy with the choice of Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, there were reservations over this at first. Huffington Post has an excerpt about the appointment from Renegade: The Making of a President. While I had reservations about her being appointed to this position, I reluctantly supported the decision thinking that Clinton would do less harm in such a post than in the Senate, especially as this would keep her away from health care reform. It turns out that Senate Democrats were also happy to see her out of the Senate:
Obama was under no illusion about the legacy of the long primary season. During one transition meeting, Obama said he wanted to offer Clinton the diplomatic job. “I’m really interested in pursuing this, but I know she has some hard feelings coming out of this campaign.” Emanuel and John Podesta, the former Clinton official who ran the transition, assured Obama that she was over those hard feelings now. Obama smiled and said, “Believe me. She’s not over it yet.”
His decision to offer her the job of secretary of state came surprisingly early. Well before the end of the primaries, when his staff and friends still felt hostile to her, Obama decided that Clinton possessed the qualities to carry his diplomacy to the rest of the world. “We actually thought during the primary, when we were pretty sure we were going to win, that she could end up being a very effective secretary of state,” he told me later. “I felt that she was disciplined, that she was precise, that she was smart as a whip, and that she would present a really strong image to the world…I had that mapped out.”
Recruiting and managing a team of rivals would not be easy, and Clinton came with her own set of issues. Chief among them was her campaign debt, which she wanted eliminated before she took the job of secretary of state. Would the president-elect go out and help her to do so? “I’m not begging her to take this job,” Obama told his senior aides. “If she wants it, I could help. But I’m not willing to go out in these difficult economic times to do a flashy fundraiser in California.” As it happened, plenty of people in the Senate were begging Obama to offer Clinton the job. Obama’s aides believed that many Senate Democrats thought Clinton had extended her presidential campaign far beyond the point where she had lost the election. Her negative advertising wasted Democratic money, threatened to undermine the party’s nominee, and suggested that she was disloyal to the party. They were unwilling to offer the junior New York senator a position ahead of her lowly rank, and she stood little chance of becoming majority leader. “There was a lot of encouragement from inside the Senate to get her into this job,” said one senior Obama aide. “They wanted her out of there.” …
As for controlling the uncontrollable Bill Clinton, Obama’s aides drew up a series of checks on his fundraising for both Clinton Global Initiative and his work on HIV/AIDS across the world. But they really counted on Hillary to be the ultimate safeguard - against both her husband and her own ambition. “It’s in her interests to keep him in line,” warned one senior Obama aide. Others in Obama’s inner circle said the president-elect believed Clinton needed to demonstrate that she was a team player and to shape her own career and legacy. “There are plenty who don’t trust her and think she still harbors something,” said another senior adviser. “It’s still potentially problematic down the road. Barack’s thinking on this is that it’s not in her interests to mess with us. She can’t win that fight internally and she’s smart enough that she won’t want that fight publicly.”
