He Seems To Know That Speech Well Enough
Marc Thiessen, The Corner:1
The West Coast Plot: An “Inconvenient Truth”
- Ridiculous are my critics and proven are my claims, for the CIA officially says2 that a plot to fly an airliner into L.A.’s Library Tower3 was foiled through the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.4 Boo-yah!5
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
1 Thiessen, formerly chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, is temporarily notorious for this Washington Post op-ed, and is lately engaged in a battle of wits with Slate’s Timothy Noah. Andrew Sullivan stands with Noah, while Crazy Andy McCarthy is ook-ooking on Thiessen’s side, explaining how Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda, and occasioning relief by not dragging Obama’s birth certificate into it.
2 A 2005 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to the chief CIA counsel says that the CIA had told them this. (The .PDF is the second from the top.)
3 According to the Bush administration, this alleged plot was foiled in 2002.
4 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003.
5 Thiessen explains how this is possible:
- George Bush said so in speeches, specifically “the most carefully vetted speech in presidential history,” i.e. the most carefully parsed speech probably in the Bush presidency, which Thiessen was presumably in on. Appointees signed off on this speech with CYA memos, specifically Honest John Negroponte, whose legal exposure in the matter of interrogations is palpable. Therefore, no matter what the intelligence community says now, their real opinion is faithfully reproduced in this world-historical Bush speech, no backs, infinity.
- A timeline of incidents from the same speech, mostly dubious, agrees with what Bush said in that speech.
- An interested party and possible subject of investigation, former CIA director Michael Hayden, cites the same speech on an April 19 FOX News interview, and adds some sourceless claims that can’t be checked.
- Thiessen makes a few more unverifiable claims (i.e. “according to the intelligence community”), adding, “These are just a few of the plots that were broken up because of information gained from CIA interrogations.” That means Thiessen knows about others but isn’t telling!
Our recommendation, of course, is waterboarding. Also, we could ask Thiessen if that practice yields reliable information, and keep doing it until he says no.
We await Mr. Noah’s rebuttal with mustard and relish.
They’re sounding more and more like desperate, insensible, cornered rats.
Good.
Hang about. Are we cornered, or are we leaving a sinking ship? Make up your minds.
The rats are sinking in their ship at The Corner.
Fleischer went off and formed his Ari Fleischer Sports Communications. Thiessen went off with Peter Schweizer (Hoover posse up!) and formed Oval Office Writers. A little more biographical information on Thiessen:
This Black.
Thiessen has an excellent resume! We were looking for a few good organisms.
“Indeed, he [Noah] claims, they not only gave up on the Library Tower, after 9/11 they decided they would never try to fly a plane into a building again.”
Which is a lie. What Noah says is that flying a plane into a building after 9/11 wouldn’t work. Which is true more or less. A lot of people are still waiting to go vigilante on anybody who even looks like they are hijacking a plane. Which is a different problem…
It’s just really blatant lying like this. It seems so childish. It isn’t even twisting someone’s words, it is just making shit up. Don’t the Repubs have something better? I kind of wish that the opposition would quit being so fucking crazy. It would be great to have people we could have an actual conversation with, come to some kind understanding with, make peace with. How can we talk to people when they don’t live in the same reality as the rest of us?
That reality you speak of is full of things they don’t like. They prefer the doughy white bread bleached of all nutrients to the chewy whole grain type.
I liked him better when he was the cute girl on “Saved By The Bell”.
How can we talk to people when they don’t live in the same reality as the rest of us?
You can’t. Which is why Texas should secede and become the Christianist Republic of Jesusstan.
What, Gov. Perry? Tamiflu supplies for the flu outbreak? Dude, you forget, you’re a whole ‘nother country now…
Oops, left out the part in which any person advocating the generic use of torture gets a free passport and one-way ticket to Jesusstan, where men are men, women are beaten, and my fellow swine are nervous.
Thiessen is very much a check the silverware type, surely a welcome addition to the Corner. Here he is on waterboarding in SERE training versus waterboarding of detainees:
Here’s what the IRC report actually says (pdf, p. 17, italics theirs):
This, on top of (or addition to) others threats against him and his family (same page).
According to the report, Abu Zubaydeh “thought [he] was going to die” during waterboarding (pp. 10, 30).
But of course, these are terrucos whose words can’t be trusted, so better to go with the mouthpiece of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Helms.
in addition to
What you libs can’t admit is that our Bush administration enhanced interrogation techniques are so effective that we extract information from the detainee before they’re captured.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply in the case of 9/11/2001, since that is totally Bill Clinton’s fault.
What, Gov. Perry? Tamiflu supplies for the flu outbreak?
Actually, few things would be more pleasing than sending foreign aid to the “Republic” of Texas. Eventually, Sally Struthers would be doing commercials for their children.
“This was the most carefully vetted speech in presidential history”
I am aware of all presidential-speech-vetting traditions.
“This was the most carefully vetted speech in presidential history”
Yes, if by “vetted” you mean that both plausible and inplausible excuses can be made in the aftermath to paper over all the known lies and falsehoods contained in the speech.
Indeed, he [Noah] claims, they not only gave up on the Library Tower, after 9/11 they decided they would never try to fly a plane into a building again.
What I want to know is what he planned on doing with all those animals he collected.
Actually, few things would be more pleasing than sending foreign aid to the “Republic” of Texas.
I volunteer for Barbecuers Without Borders.
Eventually, Sally Struthers would be doing commercials for their children.
I like to think, given the subject, even Ms. Struthers would be all “NO, fuck ’em, let ’em rot”.
N_B – Barbecuers Without Borders will only be operational in east Texas. That shit they do in west Texas isn’t barbecue, and hence the organization is not a good “fit” with the culture there.
Jennifer –
Shitkickers Without Borders?
An IMF reform package for the Houstonian Republic of Texas as a kind of Welcome to Dependency and Underdevelopment gift.
I’m not religious, but I like to think there is a special place in hell for those who spend all their time desperately trying to defend torture.
How much more awesome can it get? These Republican dickwads are now defending torturing other human beings! Openly, brzenly defending monstrous war crimes!
Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of Americans think the simulated drowning of brown people is okay, but holy shit…these Republican fuckers are doing what I thought was even too stupid and evil for them.
Sorry. Now matter how jaded and bitter and cynical I get, the GOP continues to amaze me when they shoot themselves in the ass.
While the secession of Texas would be great entertainment, I feel we libs would be morally obligated to provide a Berlin style airlift to sustain the proud, beleaguered citizens of Austin.
Perhaps we could airdrop arugula and latte mixes… whoops!
That would offend their cultural sensibilities.
The wingnuts just don’t get all of Texas. They want to be free? Find some scrub area in the badlands. Anywhere else? Fuck ’em. You get nothing. None of the cities, the ports, the bases, the resources, nothing, you worthless bunch of reprobates.
Even joking about secession I’m unwilling to even fantastically permit these useless cretins to pretend that we owe them a whole fucking state because their butt hurts because a liberal black man’s in the White House.
Well, if you don’t want to give the wingnuts a whole state, how about a smaller US territory? That nice little corner of Cuba maybe?
I love Theissen’s closing lines:
So you can believe Hayden, Tenet, McConnell, and Blair … or Tim Noah and Andrew Sullivan.
Yeah, well, Hayden, Tenet, McConnell and Blair have all lied to us before, so….I think I have my answer.
“This was the most carefully vetted speech in presidential history”
is this the same one where they started apologizing for the inaccurate “eighteen words” about yellowcake from Sudan? That carefully vetted one?
I liked him better when he was the cute girl on “Saved By The Bell”.
I’m so relieved I’m not the only one who thought of that.
is this the same one where they started apologizing for the inaccurate “eighteen words” about yellowcake from Sudan? That carefully vetted one?
No, that was a different carefully vetted speech. All of their speeches were carefully vetted. It’s not their fault if we fail to grasp their twisted logic…
It will become even more awsomer as their defenses are shown to be complete fabrications. Perhaps the most awesomest will be when people start paying attention to their attempts to hide all the evidence – the Zelikow memo, Whatshisfuck destroying the CIA tapes, and so on. It’s the coverup, idiots, it’s ALWAYS the coverup.
And never before was a speech crafted with such care or in such detail.
I must admit that I’ve enjoyed watching their saying-it-makes-it-true tactic shift from statements of fact (“Saddam has nukes!”) to defenses of process (Broder’s description of Cheney’s torture policies as “deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places”).
If they’re not careful with all that sidestepping, they’re gonna break their fool hips.
When I a young public defender fresh out of law school, I had a client who thought the best defense for his child molestation charges was to use the crap put out by NAMBLA about how natural and really okay it was for him to victimize children the way he had. I can remember telling him that I wasn’t gonna have that debate, the judgement of society was in and his behavior was a crime regardless of what he or his friends thought. Given that he had voluntarily confessed, the only way I could be effective in doing my job was to negotiate the least amount of prison time I could. Secretly, I hoped he would reject my advise and pursue the suicide mission he seemed to favor. Unfortunately, he took my advise and plead out. I am glad that Cheney and fellow criminals have chosen the route they have because when/if the ultimate question is presented to a jury there won’t be any talk of whether or not this stuff worked of if it should be illegal. Those questions might be relevant for a sentencing court but they are irrelevant as to innocence and guilt. They are confessing to crimes and making a jury’s job an easy one.
Oops.
A question to all the libs who favor “universal” socialized healthcare–
Why should I be forced to pay for some fat idiot that smokes five packs a day, is overweight, and never exercises? Why should I be forced at the point of a gun to pay for his health care when he didn’t take personal responsibility for his own actions? Is that really fair?
If we can exclude folks can we include in the exclusions morons who can’t read the topic of the thread?
Can we get back the tax money spent teaching some damn fool who can’t even spell medicine?
I believe the Medicene is the geological era in which Republican brains all fossilized.
Why should I be forced to pay for some fat idiot that smokes five packs a day, is overweight, and never exercises? Why should I be forced at the point of a gun to pay for his health care when he didn’t take personal responsibility for his own actions? Is that really fair?
You’re doing it already, that’s how insurance works.
Why should I be forced at the point of a gun to pay for his health care
Hyperbole much?
I always thought the Medicene was the period when Medicis ruled the earth.
Why should I be forced at the point of a gun to pay for his health care
Because it would amuse us. Thank you for suggesting it.
.
I CHOOSE my insurance company, or I can even CHOOSE to go without insurance.
Government mandated healthcare uses FORCE to make me not only become insured, but to use the government as my insurance.
I like the “point of a gun” idea. The whole “waiting for open enrollment period” thing would be so much more suspenseful than it is now.
Enjoy driving without insurance, troll. The government will FORCE you at the POINT OF A GUN off the road.
Dood, I Love Camel Case Too!
I always thought the Medicene was the period when Medicis ruled the earth.
It was preceded by the Epicene era, when lengthy narrative poems were still the dominant species.
I always thought the Medicene was the period when Medicis ruled the earth.
It was preceded by the Epicene era, when lengthy narrative poems were still the dominant species.
The current era is, of course, the Obscene, when members of the ruling class greet one another by flipping upside down to facilitate crotch and anus sniffing.
You’re sure? I was under the impression that an Obscene was a single episode in a play written in Ob *.
On the other hand, if someone writes epic poetry in that language, you have Obverse.
* Little-known language of the FInno-Ugric family, spoken in Siberia. I am an amateur scholar of Obliterature.
You’re sure? I was under the impression that an Obscene was a single episode in a play written in Ob *.
On the other hand, if someone writes epic poetry in that language, you have Obverse.
I missed the language-class semester when I would have learned this because I was often oblate.
the FInno-Ugric family
Ralph and Emily? I haven’t seen them in ages.
Perhaps you are better-off without the Obsession.
Perhaps you are better-off without the Obsession.
The mental disease of Alabama’ junior senator? Never had it.
Alabama’s, too. Stupid typing fingers.
This was the most carefully vetted speech in presidential history
What this means is that the speech was such a dog that only a qualified Veterinarian could be trusted to look after it.
Was not Medicene was the French cinema movement based dans Le Medi in which nothing happened in a very lyrical and moving way?
What is the pay and uniform like for Health Insurance enforcers? I would hope there would be a sash involved.
What is the pay and uniform like for Health Insurance enforcers?
Screw that. I want to know how they’re armed. If the garbage police can have guns and bulletproof vests ( http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/14/nyregion/officers-who-fight-toxic-waste.htm ), then the health police deserve no less than syringes full of ebola.
Why should I pay for highways and bridges that will be used by other people? Is that really fair?
Why should I pay for soldiers that protect other people from invading armies? Is that really fair?
Why should I pay for police that protect other people from criminals? Is that really fair?
Why should I pay for police that protect other people from criminals?
Bush and Cheney still have Secret Service details, so you might also complain that you’re paying for police that protect criminals from other people!
the libs are still the moral relativists though.
and ponzi schemes are effective too. look at how rich madoff got.
At what point does Thiessen’s vomitously immoral clowning become more than just obstructionism, and become a legally prosecutable crime?
A federal anti-torture statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340A), enacted in 1994, provides for the prosecution of a U.S. national or anyone present in the United States who, while outside the U.S., commits or attempts to commit torture.
– 18 U.S.C.
I had never heard of this Thiessen before this week, as he was promoted to chief speechwriter mainly because everyone more talented had already bailed out.
February 2008 — January 2009. Did anyone listen to a single Bush speech during 2008? Maybe there was one about the Paulson helicopter plan?
More important, for us scholars of SadlyNo history, is he related to Dr. BLT?
For Pete’s sake, even George Bush himself said the plot was busted up before KSM was captured. On May 23, 2007, Bush stood in front of the entire graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy and said:
I was going to invite you all over for Finno-Ugric kebabs, but I couldn’t find an obscure.
Theissen spent a better part of an hour speading this manure on CSPAN the other morning.
In addition to the Library Tower canard, he also explained to us that enhanced interrogation works, is not torture, and that waterboarding cannot be torture because it isn’t drowning but only “simulated drowning”. So if the subject doesn’t drown, it isn’t torture.
He also insisted that the interrotgators always told the subject that they weren’t going to be harmed and insisted that we were only “helping” the detainees meet their obligation to Allah so they could start helping us.
I was tied up anyway. I had an obligation.