Let´s At Least Make This Organized

For a quick reference, this is what Dick Durbin actually said, aptly summarized here.

(And a quick plug - I´m a huge fan of the guy that does this blog, though his views are usually far more left-leaning than mine. But he´s fair. )

I think Durbin´s words and the spin that´s been put on them is a good subject for debate, and if this turns into a new...thread...for lack of a better word (since Blogger doesn´t seem to allow it), I will act only as a moderator.

So I´ll say this once, and only once - do not break the rules. If you do, I promise to unceremoniously kick you off.

MG - this means you:

and your comment about Durban displays for all, James, your own ignorance. I bet you don't even know what he actually said. I bet you only know what Rush and Sean and Bill told you to believe he said. And that's exactly the ignorance I'm talking about.

So far, you don´t know if James knew what Durbin actually said. Nor do you know if he listens to Rush, or Sean, or Irish O´Reilly. And using these assumptions, you´ve proceeded to draw the following assumption about James:

"You´re ignorant." (Or, for a more direct quote, "quack quack quack.")

That´s a direct violation of Rule #5, lumping people together with controversial figures or known idiots. Don´t do it.

Bottom line, if you´re too angry or lazy to make informed insults, go somewhere else.

That said, Emery has raised a number of hairy issues, particularly about propaganda during the Clinton Era. I´m pretty sure both James and Emery disagree on who is/was lying during that time, so I´d like to hear each one sound off about the propaganda machine at time, and how it has evolved into the system (or lack thereof, depending on who you are) that we have today.

And one last thing - since I won´t be chiming in except to ask clarification, I´ll just give my opinion now.

I don´t think Dick Durbin deserved at all the kind of treatment he got. To zero in on one point of a speech - an inadvertant comparison to Pol Pot, etc. - and use that to imply that the entire tenor of his speech was "America Sucks" is nothing short of lying. Because that´s not what he was saying. The point was, and in my opinion, quite clearly, "America is better than this. We shouldn´t stoop to the levels of the evils we used to fight."

However...

He´s a senator, and as a senator, he should have known that, unless he had a really, really good case, he´d be throwing himself to the wolves, and particularly ravenous wolves at that. And yet he did, with a speech that had one relevant citation.

(To which, had I been speaking to him once I heard this, would have sprung forth the following words:)

Are you out of your goddamn mind?

Take the worst-case scenario: the reports are true, and far worse than we imagine. Given government´s tendency to cover up their mistakes (read: Ruby Ridge), if Durbin went in with anything but a knockout punch, he was pretty much guaranteeing himself to infamy and his position to loss. If you´re going to win something like this, you need to hit first, hit fast, and hit hard. Get more reports, specify what changes you want, etc., but don´t walk on the senate floor and hope that all listening to you will be charitable and heed your words with the care and consideration that logic and cool-headedness demands.

That´s it. Let the games begin.