Carl Levin Calls Out Dick Cheney on Torture Memos
Dick Cheney and his daughter have been on a literal media blitz calling for the release of memos they claim would prove torturing prisoners prevented future attacks on America. Former C&L'er Steve Benen joined Rachel Maddow to weigh in on Carl Levin's debunking of the tag team's talking points. As Steve notes in his blog at Washington Monthly:
But perhaps Levin's most newsworthy remarks referenced the classified materials Cheney believes document the alleged terror attacks prevented by torture.
"Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked. But those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified so that people can judge for themselves what is fact and what is fiction."
It's worth emphasizing that Levin is, of course, privy to the same materials Cheney has been talking about.
His remarks are hardly surprising, but it's nevertheless helpful to hear Levin reject the most common claim Cheney has pushed for months now -- the documents in question don't say what Cheney thinks they say.
As Steve points out during the interview, if this is going to come down to who has more credibility with the public, it ain't gonna' be Dick Cheney.
someone stood up, not sure if it will change any minds though.
Totally off topic and I hope not something to get my comment removed. Why does Carl Levin have the combover? Even with this important thing he did and what he was saying I was watching him thinking "this man thinks I think he has hair"
And why the phony bookshelf background Mr. Benen?
if DICK Cheney speaks Spanish??? Or, will he need a translator?
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Carl Levin is one of the most credible members of Congress......Period.
Levin, Leahy, Kucinich, Sherrod Brown, Webb....anyone have any others? I know there are a few more.
Somebody needs to refute the Cheney talking (ie, bald-faced lying) points. This is great.
Kudos to Rachel and Steve!
The similarities to the pre-Iraq war White House media blitz are obvious.
Cheney figures, it worked once, why not again?
This is the latest gossip elsewhere.
He's going to take the whole fall for this. The Bushes are embracing the Clintons...(yuck)...and it definitely looks like Uncle Dick will be taking the fall for this one.
Oh well...when you associate with theives, you can expect that they will screw you to save their own. You were never really one of them Dick...how's that feel? Like Hell I hope...
chenny has been lying his entire life and been getting away with it.
I hope he gets his head in a noose!
Dick Cheney once had the benefit of the doubt going for him, but now the reverse is true.
Now we have the benefit of certainty going for us, that he is worse than imagined and a scourge to the nation.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Dick Cheese...
his head reminds me of phimosis
To have a senator respond to claims that we tortured by arguing that it wasn't as effective as the torturer claimed, rather than calling for the torturer to be arrested is NOT a reason to be upbeat.
Some of the right have started implying, if not flatly stating, that it's not really torture, and even if it is, it's OK, because it worked and we really needed to do it.
He's simply answering Cheney's latest argument. And while Cheney's argument is a red herring, if it's not answered, before you know it, it will take on a life of its own.
Let us not forget that Cheney still insists that there were significant connections between Al Quida and Saddam H., when no one else who has looked at the evidence agrees. I'm sure in the warped way Cheney reads things, the very same documents that no one else reads as supporting Cheney's view, Cheney himself sees as clearly supportive of torture, et al.
Before the '08 election I wondered if there would be any point to the continued existence of Crooks 'n Liars after Obama won and the Republicans lost their congressional majority. Surely, I thought, the progressive blogosphere will lose its momentum once the Center-Left reasserts itself.
Silly me.
Who could have dreamed the hated Dick Cheney, the discredited, delusional, amoral Vice Fear-Monger-in-Chief, would become the star spokesman for Endless War based on Big Lies and Torture?
F*ck me, does the bullsh*t ever stop?
I remember thinking the same thing at the time. Silly us.
Welcome to Perpetual Bizarro World.
Paging Superman ....
How many fibs does Cheney have to get caught telling before the MSM considers him a "Liar?"
After all, has Dick ever been caught telling the truth? I remember his debate with John Edwards in 2004, Cheney couldn't even tell the truth about a mundane detail such as whether or not he ever met Edwards before.
Seriously, what use has Dick ever been to anyone? Even Bush?
The issue is what's legal, not what works. Cheney's trying to confuse the former with the latter.
...believes there are memos that will back up any lie he can make up.
He's been on the Dark Side of Undisclosed Locations for so long I don't think he has any idea what is real anymore.
I recommend Cheney search for reality at the International Criminal Court.
Maybe the Dickster and his complicit Mini-Dick henchmen dictated a bunch of exculpatory memos while he was VP, just in case he might have to answer for his lies and criminality after his constitutionally mandated ejection from office.
I wouldn't put it past him to have created his own top-secret 'evidence' of the necessity for torture and permanent war. I effect, using the NSA and the CIA to CYA.
OK, so Cheney's evil spawn worked for an intelligence agency or something? But would that provide her with security clearance high enough to know--first hand--what's disclosed in "classified" CIA documents?
This doesn't pass the "smell" test. Of course, neither does Cheney.
Liz,otherwise known as "Dickless" Cheney.
...I envy the Dick's ability to get his daughter to co-operate with him.
God forbid my own 16-year old "princess" would so much as take out the recycling without an impassioned argument.
Obviously thinks these documents will not be declassified while he's alive (hasn't he already had a few heart attacks?)
Point number 2: What is Liz's security clearance? how does she "know" these things when most of what she is defending is based on classified information. Classified is basically "need to know", what function is/was she performing in the employ of the Government that she needed access to this information?
I grew up with a guy that had a White House Clearance and a woman that was tasked by JEHoover to listen into his phone calls (as a witness); both ex-FBI. I ate dinner every night with them, vacationed with them etc etc yet I don't know one damn thing that my own (unrelated) security clearance and job didn't require me to know. My parents took their secrets to their graves with them (I still don't really know what my dad was involved in that he needed a WH Clearance).
Back to the point; how does an adult child of a person with clearance know so much more than the rest of us when it is basically ILLEGAL for the big dick to even talk in front of her about that stuff?
We crossed posts so I'll add this to yours....
He knows the documents contain no such thing. He is hedging that they will not be released, therefore his lie will have the advantage of never being disclosed. Purely a despicable move that will hopefully backfire on the big Dick.
Make no motto of love that worships war
Carl Levin is actually a duly elected official while Dick is.. not. In fact, Dick is just a citizen at least until after he is tried for war crimes.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
unsurprisingly Russ Feingold has said the same thing:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/13/feingold-...
And so has basically FBI's director and the FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, who was asked about the matter under oath. Will Liz and Dick repeat the claims under oath?
Appoint an independent council already!
With the exception of Rachel Maddow, why is no one in the MSM challenging Cheney's assertions or his lousy reputation for speaking the truth? It's great that Carl Levin spoke out, but how many people in this country heard him versus the numbers of people who've been listening to Dick and his daughter. Does anyone not find it a little bizarre that Cheney's daughter is the one going out on the stump defending him? How credible is that? But of course the media sucks it right up. I'm so sick of the ineptitude of our MSM. I would encourage everyone to read Frank Rich's article in this Sunday's NYT. What's really unfortunate is that the Bush administration has actually made us less safe in the long run. They've wasted valuable time. The fact that we've not had an attack on American soil is totally meaningless.
Cheney knows garnering all the publicity around his Crimes of Torture will produce a nationwide biased Jury pool and he will demand a jury trial which no court will touch with a ten foot pole.
SO ladies and gentlemen Osama bin Cheney will walk.
It may be a good tactic Legally?
Donaldd
Even if the documents were released and Levin is found to be correct -- lives saved bears no relation as to the necessity of the torture used -- people will still selectively see Cheney only as they prefer to see him.
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