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Thursday, June 16, 2005

Disturbin' Durbin

Senator Dick Durbin, all happy and everything after his Guantanamo speech.

HALLITES. A few Republicans were really amazed when Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois commented on an FBI report about prisoner humiliations and hardships at Guantanamo in these terms:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime-- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

We just figured he hadn't done any homework about the Soviets, etc, but shrewder heads than ours suspected darker problems than that, especially when this little item came to light:

Durbin did not plan to apologize for the comments, spokesman Joe Shoemaker said.

"This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure," Durbin said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Again, we thought he just didn't know that terrorists are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, but we were wrong. Not long afterwards, a friend called with the very sad news that:

(The) brain was severely shriveled and weighed about half that of a normal adult's. The damage to it "was irrecoverable, and no amount of treatment or rehabilitation would have reversed" it, said pathologist Jon Thogmartin.

At least he and his young friend are still smiling. That's nice.

Our sincere condolences go out to the Senator and his family, along with our immense relief that we didn't say any of the nasty things that have been popping up all over the internet.

UPDATE. For those of you seeking more depth in coverage of Durbin's remarks, Michelle Malkin has become the unofficial clearinghouse for blog entries reeducating the Illinois senator. And if it's depth you want, here is InstaPunk's lengthy (and quite serious) essay on torture in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia as they relate to the Abu Ghraib infractions.

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