New Directions In Jazz

andy_mcmonkey

Crazy Andy McCarthy, The Corner:
Re: Sidestepping the Issue

  • Oh, but Ramesh, lawbreaking isn’t necessarily against the law at all, because what if there’s a crime and the law keeps you from finding out whether there is one or not?

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


 

Notes:

1- Cf. Ramesh Ponnuru.

2- This might be the stupidest argument in the entire history of stoops, id, aargh!, you, and mint.

 

Comments: 39

 
 
 

There’s no crime like making crimes legal.

These guys have set a precedent for torturing logic, too.

 
Wyatt Watts III
 

There are times when the law is broken but in order to prove it we would have to intrude on the relationship between spouses, priest and pentitent, doctor and patient, etc.

Yes, I think we have to respect the sacred privacy of the torturer-torturee relationship.

 
 

The 9/11 killers filled in joke paperwork issued by the US State Department and were waived through US immigration by US officials

OK, hold on here. It’s almost as if he’s implying that the Bush Administration were somehow culpable. Surely he didn’t mean to write that, right?

 
 

Of course, I’m only operating under the well known assumption that a president has full control over the entire apparatus of federal government within his first 100 days, and thus must be held fully accountable for anything done or not done by it.

 
 

Funny, how Zubaydah talked without “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

A former FBI special agent who questioned terror suspect Abu Zubaydah admits that the prisoner gave up actionable intelligence in June of 2002, without torture. Zubaydah was tortured that August, for no good reason. The agent says that U.S. officials falsely claimed that Zubaydah was uncooperative in order to justify torturing him

.

 
 

OK, hold on here. It’s almost as if he’s implying that the Bush Administration were somehow culpable. Surely he didn’t mean to write that, right?

Nah, blaming Clinton…

Remember it’s all Clinton’s fault, unless it’s Obama’s fault. Bush only did the good things

/end snark

 
 

Gavin, the link should be

Okay, so I’ve been waxing clever on the wrong article. Thanks for pointing it out, Lesley.

 
 

Thanks, I’ll change it right away.

 
 

I suppose you folks wouldn’t mind if I sent you money, but is there some other kind and grateful gesture I could offer?

Me, I read Ramesh’s nonsense, and couldn’t come up with anything other than, “what a stupid overeducated dick.” And he almost made sense! For a second there, I was thinking ol’ Ramesh would come down on the side of sanity.

That’s why no one reads my blog, I suppose.

FSM bless you all. I know these geniuses read your work, and it gives me Big Satisfaction, despite also knowing their take is that we just don’t get it.

 
 

Yeah but Lesley that was talking not “talking” about how Saddam and Osama were conspiring to go jihad on the Cheeto factory.

 
 

Remember it’s all Clinton’s fault, unless it’s Obama’s fault. Bush only did the good things

I think you may have hit upon why they’ve lost the last couple of elections.

 
 

Ooh, lookee here – it’s a new version of a charity dunk-tank!

Auction off the opportunity to hold the water-jug & this could hit six figures fast.

 
 

When I say I believe the case is preposterous, I mean the legal case alleging proof beyond a reasonable doubt of torture or war crimes.

Well, there isn’t a crime either, so there!

 
 

At risk in the interrogations controversy are the potentials of criminalizing our political disputes

Which is obviously worse than politicizing our criminal disputes.

 
 

There are times when the law is broken but in order to prove it we would have to intrude on the relationship between spouses, priest and pentitent, doctor and patient, etc. We refrain from that because, as a society, we’ve decided there are more important interests than seeing even a heinous crime prosecuted.

Like, say, blow jobs.

 
 

I think you may have hit upon why they’ve lost the last couple of elections.

Including the one they just had last month in New York. Bwahahahaha!

 
 

Ooh, lookee here – it’s a new version of a charity dunk-tank!

It’s been done. The guy lasted 3 seconds and now has PTSD.

 
 

How do you solve a problem like a war crime?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

 
 

In Andy’s defense, I should say, “lying about extramarital blow jobs under oath.”

Because no doubt Andy would consider this a matter most important for prosecution and national distraction.

Andy has never lied about sex, ever. Not hard in his case, I would guess.

 
 

Enforcement of the law is a significant consideration in any situation where the law has been, or may have been, broken. But it is a measure of how over-lawed we have become when people start thinking of law-enforcement as always the paramount consideration.

I get the impression Andy-the-prosecutor has had cases thrown out on legal technicalities.

 
 

I have The Corner in my comedy folder.

Andy could be the King of the Wanking Comedians.

“Respected Publication” category, it goes without saying.

 
 

Isn’t that cute. They are actually trying to reason. My god what a train wreck.

 
 

I like how the DOJ is supposed to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt without being able to investigate. They can’t investigate because, per the assholes at the corner, they have to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in order to investigate!

These people are crazy-making.

 
 

“Andy has never lied about sex, ever.”

No, I’m pretty sure he’s told somebody he’s had it.

 
 

I do not mean to imply that it is preposterous for us to think long and hard about whether enhanced interrogation techniques should be used. It’s obviously very important that we do that, and I admire the people on both sides who have wrestled with this in good faith.

Wrestle with this in good faith, Chumley. He deserves a punch in the nutz for those two sentences. In essence he’s saying put on your Very Serious Faces and Speak Very Seriously, but goddamn it, let’s not go crazy with this whole fakakte “torture” investigation horseshit.

 
 

Also, you know, this:

In a case that could potentially prompt unrest along racial or ethnic lines, for example, prosecutors will apply a higher standard of proof before charging …

Happens all the time. All those black people in prison? Disproportionately so? Crazy thing is, prosecutors were applying a HIGHER STANDARD OF PROOF in their cases … so you know they’re really, really guilty.

I have to think it works for torture, too. Those cab drivers they picked up off the street and Baghdad and tortured … the standard of proof there must have been stratospheric.

 
 

There’s a commenter on a board I frequent who suggested that much of the anti-torture vehemence coming from the left is simply the result of Gore and/or Kerry losing. In other words, had Gore been properly seated in 2000 and 9/11 had still happened we’d all be carrying Democratic pro-torture placards at the Gore pro-war rallies.

 
 

Enforcement of the law is a significant consideration in any situation where the law has been, or may have been, broken. But it is a measure of how over-lawed we have become when people start thinking of law-enforcement as always the paramount consideration.

Yeah, the ratification of the Geneva Conventions is certainly a case of being “over-lawed.”

Fuck, they are terrified. Just terrified. Bush II is going down in history as more evil than the Nixon administration. Even Nixon didn’t order the military to torture captured Viet Cong or NVA soldiers for information, and that was in a hot war zone. The national GOP is in very real danger of being shunned like radioactive waste for a generation.

Darth Cheney & minions ordered the torture foreign captives for domestic political purposes. That is some pure, concentrated evil.

 
 

I’ve concluded torture is in the eye of the beholder, or the dude responsible for picking up the eyes. The buffet at our space in Cuba is sensational. To funny. We suck.

 
 

At risk in the interrogations controversy are the potentials of criminalizing our political disputes

I heard fucking Bobo on the News Hour today say something similar and nearly went off my nut.

We are not criminalizing anything. The actions in question were criminal when they were performed. That makes them crimes, fuckhead, not “political disputes”.

We’re back to Tom fucking DeLay and his “Oh noez! You’re criminalizing politics!!!” bullshit again. I said it then and I say it now. If y’all would keep from breaking the law in the name of politics, we’d stop trying to put you in jail for it. Simple, no?

 
 

When I say I believe the case is preposterous, I mean the legal case alleging proof beyond a reasonable doubt of torture or war crimes.

Holy shit. These people laughed when folks pointed out Clinton could never be convicted of perjury based on the definition of sex stipulated by Paula Jones lawyers, saying everyone knows what “sex” means, and now they want to quibble about whether supervised drowning, slamming people against walls, and beating people to death are “torture” and therefore “crimes?” May they reap what they sow, each and every one of them.

 
 

If you push a tree on someone in the forest and no one has found the body yet, is it a crime?

 
 

“There are times when the law is broken but in order to prove it we would have to intrude on the relationship between spouses, priest and pentitent, doctor and patient, etc. We refrain from that because, as a society, we’ve decided there are more important interests than seeing even a heinous crime prosecuted.”

No, we refrain from it because obtaining proof in this manner would violate legal and constitutional rights. We could prove crimes by torturing a suspect into confessing evidence of his guilt, but that would violate the 5th amendment prohibition of self-incrimination. Prosecuting the enablers of torture doesn’t require any “value judgment” or weighing of interests as long as evidence of the crime can be gathered within the constitutional framework.

 
 

When I say I believe the case is preposterous, I mean the legal case alleging proof beyond a reasonable doubt of torture or war crimes.

Gladly, No!

The laws of the land in America are & were what they are & were, & BushCo has no method of destroying the historical public record. Said record reeks with their brazen orgy of crime & butchery – & nothing terrifies them as much as the threat of being dragged to trials & made to face the music.

Premeditated mass-murder isn’t a place you can leave with six months of community service & a fine (not to mention possibly conspiring, instigating &/or aiding in the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad’s religious minority)… doped out as fuck & delusional yes, but they’re not too stupid to know full well that they’ve already bought themselves a fat book of tickets to a major gurneying-party & their only option is desperately gambling on their societal status & corporate grease to keep them from becoming maggot-chow. Will that work for them?

Sadly, Yeah.

(Unless … unless Yanks decide to make Obama live up to his public image, & prove he has an ethical spine when it matters, hardcore, where the rubber & the road connect. Such political action is not a very arse-to-sofa-interface-friendly project – so color me dubious, he sighed.)

 
 

And republicans have always benefitted from this situational morality bullshit. For instance, while Clinton was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for getting a fully consensual blow job, Nixon wasn’t prosecuted for a blatant political burglary because it would be too divisive and it was more important for the country to heal. In the interests of “national unity” all of the Iran-Contra criminals were pardoned by Bush I on last day of his presidency, after the administration had stonewalled Lawrence Walsh for 4 years.

 
 

It’s only a crime if the accused admits it. Just like a wingnut only loses an argument if he utters the words “I have lost this argument.”

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

In the interests of “national unity” all of the Iran-Contra criminals were pardoned by Bush I on last day of his presidency, after the administration had stonewalled Lawrence Walsh for 4 years.

Clinton should have opened a case of whoopass on the Reagan/Bush regimes. His failure to do so allowed the retreads to come back to haunt us in the Dubya regime.

Clinton… the best Republican president since Ike.

 
 

Clinton… the best Republican president since Ike.

LOL, that’s how I refer to him all the time.

 
 

(comments are closed)