Chris Matthews Slams Harold Ford for "Cheney Talk"
On Hardball, Harold Ford pulls out the 24 ticking time bomb red herring and says he might have voted for torture after our country was attacked on 9/11. Matthews slams him for veering into "Cheney country" and rightfully so.
With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Chris Cillizza isn't much better with more of his talk of polls and how many Americans approve of torture. Apparently Joan Walsh's lecture didn't get through to him.
Matthews: You know it's interesting Congressman it seems like Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are caught trying to do two things at the same time. You see her standing there in front of a million flags sincerely trying to look as nationalistic as the Republicans. I mean patriotic...in other words tough. Anything that goes to the defense of the country we're going to be tough as nails as opposing any enemy of any kind. We're tough as the Republicans are. At the same time trying to express sympathy for prisoners, bad guys. Is that a problem? You seem to be suggesting it is. You can't be both tough as nails and at the same time look like you worry about human rights violations. Is that a problem politically or not?
Ford: No. I think Eric Holder said this best when referring to the Ted Stevens case in the aftermath and when he stepped forward and said we would not, the Justice Department would not move forward. He said the most important thing in the Justice Department is not winning, it's justice. So in this sense I think having the conversation about what happened and whether or not at Guantanamo Bay, and I'm not as outraged as some are about it because as much as I think some of those techniques were enhanced and might have risen to a level of torture you have to remember when this was occurring.
This is 2002, 2003. The country was in a different place, in a different space. And if you were to say to me, as an American, put aside my partisanship, that we have an opportunity to gain information that would prevent the destruction of an American city, to prevent killings in American cities, and we have to use certain techniques, I’m one of those Americans that would have voted a certain way, Chris. And that polling said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.
Matthews: You are veering into Cheney country here. The destruction of an American city. What evidence did you ever have that the enemy had a nuclear weapon that could blow up an American city? Where'd that..that's Cheney talk. That is..that's what he uses to justify torture. We have no evidence that any enemy of ours had a nuclear weapon.
Few things are as aggravating as watching Harold Ford Jr. represent Democrats on the various cable news shows. The man is as unprincipled as he is uninformed. He seems to think that since everyone was so upset after 9/11 that we could dump the rule of law and enjoy a little "angry mob" mentality for awhile with impunity. No Mr.Ford, just because you would've supported torturing prisoners and did support invading Iraq doesn't make either of them legal or right, then or now.
Article 2
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
What gambitLB said. "Well, yeah, I broke international law, but it was my mindset made me do it." America has been plenty paranoid in past eras, and it never came to this '24' infantile testosterone spike fantasyland.
Torture was not a "mistake." It's a crime.
Harold Ford epitomizes the weak harmless black man afraid to rock the boat racially insecure Conservatives love so much. Before accepting Defector Specter, the Democratic leadership should have offered this cringing uncle tom as a trade off.
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“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
"Powell does deserve some culpability. For willfully jumping in bed with brown people murdering warmongers, and for a seemingly intelligent black man joining the GOP in the first Goddamned place."
L&L a few days ago.
Doggonit I think you are on to something ricky
If you believe that through my life experiences that I am wrong because I don't see the world the same as you do, you are truly a fool.
So is race the issue?
I did not know you were black. Your comment about Powell reminded me a comment my Dad made about Bryant Gumball 20 years ago "He's pretty intelligent for a negro."
Couldn't you have said of Powell for a "seemingly intelligent
blackman"? What does Powell's race have to do with it?I believe that virtually every "black Republican" is an opportunist...they can't believe in Conservatism...a failed idea appealing only to rich white people.
In some cases, yes...race is an issue that I will discuss. Feel free to ignore me if my open-ness offends you.
And you might as well ask:
- What does Ford's political party have to do with it?
- What does Ford's gender have to do with it?
- What does Ford's IQ have to do with it?
I'm seeing L&L's comment as speaking more to the paradox in society - that the search for legitimacy by minorities is often hamstrung by the fact that it's the white power structure which 'awards' that legitimacy; as a black attorney in Chicago, L&L has doubtless found that he is able to conduct his business without kowtowing to people like Cheney.
Howard Ford is a special case altogether. I've never believed any of his words were sincere because he's learned how to be a A#1 player.
But to hear this...Player -this African American from the South no less, treat 9-11 so reverentially as to justify and condone the horrors pushed by one of the most evil white men in America tells me this brother has hidden and/or forgotten the horrors of his own past for political purposes.
And that infuriates and disgusts me.
The guy's a liar or stupid...either way, worthless.
I groaned when I saw that Matthews had invited Harold Ford Jr. to talk about Nancy Pelosi.
I'm not Pelosi's biggest fan, but Ford nauseates me - as a "biracial" person myself, I'm with L&L on this one. As a political player, Ford embodies the worst traits of the classic Uncle Tom caricature.
As a matter of full disclosure, either Ford or Matthews should have started out by reminding people that when Nancy Pelosi ran to be Speaker the first time, Ford ran a weaselly, conformist campaign against her from the right - there's no love lost between the two of them.
IMO he has spent his entire political life placating to what he believes conservative white people want to hear...he has lost his soul by being so preoccupied with "serving" that constituency. Like Clarence Thomas, O.J.(before the murders), Ron Christie, Larry Edler, et al, some black people play this game for personal advancement. Ford is playing that game.
All I Remember about Colon is his involvement in the My Lai Vietnam massacre Cover Up as a Major and the reading of a 1991 Plagiarized College Students paper to the 2003 U.N. Security Council supporting the invasion of Iraq.
Neither makes Mr. Powell a hero in my book!
Donaldd
And the best way to summarize your position is:
"Harold Ford is a traitor to my race."
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Harold Ford is a traitor to himself and the human race.
...
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“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
...concerning a patronizing politician who all his career has pacified people who hate him and his race, is very irrelevant.
I feel betrayed by by Harold Ford Jr, Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas and I'm white.
The Bush-Cheney administration was a bunch of people who overly compensated for allowing 9/11 to happen. They ignored warnings and even considered cutting funds for intelligence, then went 180 degrees in the other direction and ignored the laws of our land in an attempt to show they weren't inept. I can't completely blame Democrats like Ford, though: if you didn't go along with Bush-Cheney, you were accused of being unpatriotic, in bed with the terrorists, etc. etc. Mob mentality. We need to go back to being a country that thinks before it scraps its laws in favor of expedience.
To say that accusations of 'being unpatriotic' are just cause for signing onto the torture bandwagon also implies that you and I - at the level of a citizen, possibly with no particular investment in our national security (by way of a family member serving abroad, etc.), have less of a stake in this, and can be safely ignored.
Bush-Cheney ignored protests here and abroad and the Pope himself in the invasion of Iraq. Sen. Robert Byrd also registered his disapproval, as I remember, of the Iraq invasion. Of course, few knew about torture until the photos of Abu Ghraib were published. And so far, the protests have been safely ignored because no one except a few "little people" like Lynndie Englund and Charles Graner were prosecuted. I'm not saying the accusations of being unpatriotic were just cause for signing onto torture. All I'm saying is the reason for Ford's stance is understandable because it was politically expedient. But I neglected to add it is also completely reprehensible. And it is no longer politically expedient, because the American public is justifiably appalled.
It doesn't do Harold Ford any good to talk like a Republican and be a Democrat in name only. Maybe the backwoods voters in Tennesee might vote for him someday, but as a national candidate, there's no constituency for his ignorance.
Harold Ford is courting the rich and their campaign dollars.
These a-holes always bring up the "ticking time bomb" scenario, which has no actual bearing on the torture discussion. It is a false positive to begin with; as they begin with the premise this person "has" the information you are seeking, which they have no way of knowing. And of course physical torture produces false results so you are no better off with such intel.
I am sure Roxana Saberi would have admitted to being a spy after torture weather true or not. The only thing accomplished by torture is the revelation that the torturers are just sick F%$!*.
Ford is pitching this like we had no concept of waterboarding before 9/11.
It's like saying, "Gosh, I didn't know you could kill someone with a screwdriver." - you nontheless are already aware that killing someone constitutes murder, and of the penalties therein.
Cheney's argument is also flawed - that we did x because there was a threat of y, and y didn't happen, so x was the correct choice. It's the old joke about whistling to keep the elephants away. 'What elephants?' you ask. See?!?! It works!
But Ford and Cheney will continue spinning this 'moral dilemma' that stipulates there are circumstances under which torture is acceptable, whether it's for reasons of fear or national security. It's the same nonsense as 'teaching the controversy' between evolution and creation.
The use an arguemen from "24" when the evidence indicates the torture was unsuccessful and had already taken place when the memos giving permission were written. Harold Ford is a disappointment. He seems to think cow towing to the angry white man is the was for him to go.
is a dark and mysterious place.
Don't go there unless you're well-armed, lawyered-up, and have all your personal affairs in order.
It's repulsive to watch cowards and torturers try to drag us all down to their level.
Ford has never struck me as being a very wise man. Often his comments are shallow and appear to be trying to please rather than the results of knowledge and deep thought.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I think a lot of people were like me in 2002 and 2003 and 4 and 5. I was scared alright,but more of my government than terrorists. I barely recognized the country I grew up in. For the first time in a very long time I am beginning to see it again. Feels Good.
... that worried me, it's that the government was leading the way as far as fear-motivated responses.
I maintain that it's fine if a private citizen wants to say, "We need to torture these bastards and make 'em talk!" - but it's the government, our leadership, that should be counseling moderation and respect for the law.
I knew Ford was dumb - but I never realized he was that Dumb.
*
Harold has spent so much time on Faux snooze over the last few years he forgot which program he was on.
I've always thought that, at least now he's confirmed it himself.
"When are we going to stop trying to tell elected officials what to do. Our job is to spend the taxpayers' money the best way we can." -- Tommy Watkins, Justice of the Peace, Crawford County, Arkansas
Allows the president to decide what is or is not Torture. Bush-Cheney-Rice say Waterboarding and other Enhanced interrogation methods they used were not torture. By John McCain's MCA Law they are right!
America Does Torture, if the President says those methods are not torture. Morally Wrong or NOT!
Donaldd
Legilize child rape murder torture treason sounds like a decider to me.
Except he's a destroyer ,our elections, not senate confirmed AG's,
non Katrina response,wars of aggression w/o end. What didn't this guy destroy by his brilliant deciding.
Just understand this,
Torture is illegal, waterboarding is torture. If you choose that path, be prepared to pay the consequences for ignoring your responsibility to the law, as it currently exists.
And since the law is an international treaty, simple OLC opinions are insufficient to modify international law.
If you torture, regardless of motive, there should be consequences.
Same goes for Cheney and company.
of my contention that the Democratic Party is a center right party. There is no liberal party in this country. There might be a few liberal members in the Democratic party, but the party itself is far from liberal.
The Dems are now the center right party, Carter was the last liberal POTUS.
The Piglicans have moved to the batshit far right and will soon fade away.
Those on the left (Greens, Socialist, etc) would be wise to merge into a larger coalition party.
Preferably before the Democratic Party moves even farther to the right.
It is a sad legacy on how much Raygun and his crew pushed the country towards the right that Carter now looks liberal in comparison.
In any case, the Dems in most other industrialized nations would be considered a center-right party.
ballot.
"Those on the left (Greens, Socialist, etc) would be wise to merge into a larger coalition party."
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Liz Cheney was on Morning Joe this morning defending her dad. Her bottom line was, the way we did the water boarding and other things did not qualify those acts as torture. It was lame as hell the way she kept coming to that same conclusion. She was asked by others on the show why, if cheney thinks Obama is doing things so wrong, why doesn't cheney speak directly to the President and explain his fears. Her response was that the white house has never invited her dad there to talk about it. My feeling is that if cheney feels we are in such dire danger, he might want to initiate the conversation with the white house.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
are defending torture by using the same old tired scare tactics. I saw this show and had to send in an email telling them to get that Crazy woman off air. The scare tactics worked for far too long. We stayed cowered in the corner too scared to speak up for whatever reason.
Now it is time to stand up like brave Americans and do the right thing. Actually it is way past time.
How she acquired the security clearance that would be sufficient to allow her to establish this argument as a basis in fact?
Or did daddy violate the law again?
a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for something-or-other, a few years back. There are perks for being a Daddy's girl, you know.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
"Torture is illegal" do they not get. Robbing a bank could get me out of debt but it is illegal. Even though I would be out of debt, I should be in jail.....it is illegal.
"...as nationalistic as the Republicans. I mean patriotic" Oooops! Slipped up and spoke truth to power there for a minute. Never mind, back to business....
Her bottom line was, the way we did the water boarding and other things did not qualify those acts as torture.
If that's the case, let's waterboard HER next on Morning Joe!
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
...is anyone else having issues with the clips pausing every few seconds when you replay them? It's really annoying and I access through a T-1 line so this shouldn't happen.
he is a regular repeater of RW talking points
he is a regular repeater of RW talking points
I don't care if 100% of the American public polled said that it was a good idea to torture these dudes for ANY REASON! IT DOESN'T F*CKING MATTER!!!
It is WRONG!! TORTURE IS AGAINST INTERNATIONAL LAW!! Law that WE stood for, AT ONE TIME!!
What is the matter with these f*cktards?? I don't care what polls said. If the polls said exterminating undocumented aliens is a good idea, DOES THAT MAKE IT OK????
God, get your heads out of your asses!! This is crime. This is putting the US in the same sewer lines as Al Queda, Hitler's Reich, Pol Pot's cleansing. We can no longer hold other countries accountable for their attrocities when WE ourselves are guilty of crimes against humanity.
Why is this debate even happening?? I don't care if it got us GREAT INFORMATION....which it did not. That's not the point. The point is WE TORTURED human beings. We MURDERED nearly a hundred in our little secret prisons around the world. We shipped to countries where WE KNEW they would be totured.
What have we become????? Simply animals?
...torture is OK, is a chicken shit bastard who is afraid of their own fucking shadow.
I wonder how many of those who feel that way have ever served in the military. I guess they're OK with our military being tortured if they were ever to get captured then, right?
Cowards.
Animals -- vastly superior to us in every way -- do not do such heinous things.
I long for the day when we quit using that word as some sort of pejorative. If anything, it's a compliment. (My cat just looked at me approvingly, and scrub jays outside are waiting for their peanuts.)
What it is, is distraction, distraction, distraction, until another 'news' event blows the torture discussions off the minds of us little, useless, peóns. Like the swine flu outbreak. See, now that silenced torture for at least 24 solid hours. We all know that it is wrong, against the law, against human nature, revolting, disgusting, unacceptable, sociopathic, uncivilized, ............and that it accomplishes nothing of substance, unless lies is what you are after.
I never liked this weakling. His judgement is so impressive that he thought John McCain's Green Background Speech was a homerun. This guy would sell his country to the highest bidder. As what's funny is that he thought he was going to become Commerce Secretary in the Obama Administration.
This Flunky was with Hillary Clinton in the beginning because thought she was going to win so he has clearly shown time after time he is nothing more than an opportunist.
Maybe he is setting himself up to run against Obama next time. Well guess what Mr. Playboy Mansion we will be waiting on you.
...show on MSNBC. Ford would just laugh through Imus and his band of bigots nasty hateful comments...Ford never challenged Imus.
Ford is another Dem. that should just keep his stupid mouth shut and stay off the talk shows.
when I hear Tweety "getting tough" on topics like torture, Iraq war justification, etc.
Surely most of us can remember when he was cheerleading the war effort and had W's codpiece draped over his nose?
MSNBC fired Phil Donahue for not cheer leading the war. Chris Matthews did his masters' bidding (with apparent gusto) and kept his job.
Seems like he would have more empathy for the Democratic weasels, being one himself. But he has no conscience.
My stomach turns with yours but I don't mind as much hearing him pretend to stand for something when it's what I believe in.
... come to Cheney's rescue now that the evil one is more toxic than Paris Hilton's underwear. The political tone deafness of Ford is something worthy of awe.
This dumb ass Ford should just quit wasting everybody's time, skip the middle man, and join the GOP already. And I hope he takes his DLC buddies with him too. I expect the DLC cadre to come out swinging in defense of the GOP even harder than the GOPers themselves. Talk about being the fifth column.
By Harry Ford's way of thinking we should torture everybody we capture
100125150185 times until they tell us what city they are going to nuke because they sure know who what when where why that this city is. Don' t they? Maybe. And if not then at they maybe could have. Maybe. Cheney needs the same punishment that the Japanese received for water torturing our soldiers!I want to barf.
criticism when Cheney was committing "Cheney talk?"
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“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Cheney was so cloaked in secrecy and he would only release selected information to make the appearance of an eminent danger in order to scare the country into submission to his will. But now that his house of cards are being deconstructed and exposed in plain view, there is no excuse for anybody to buy the "Cheney talk", and I was extremely disgusted with Ford's "please Mr. Cheney protect me from the bad old terrorists constitution be damned" crap.
(Heck, it was also my birthday, but that's a whole different story.)
But it's amazing how it turned masses of otherwise sane Americans into quivering, quaking milquetoasts. "Nine/eleven this, nine/eleven that" -- it became a nontop drumbeat of fear, overreaction and projection. It was the gift that kept on giving for the Bush Crime Family. It's a shame that so many people bought into the whole "It changed everywhere" meme -- which basically made it OK to do anything and everything, illegally and immorality be damned.
The Democrats are the biggest bunch of pink-tutu-wearing pansywaists in captivity. Shame on them for giving even a shred of credibility and plausibility to Dick Cheney's fevered declarations.
When Harold ford comes on to "defend" the democrats I change the channel.
to represent Democrats, Cilizza if the perfect caricature
of the Village Idiots.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
...Americans favored torturing alleged terrorists, then damn it the Democrats should be for torture too.
Needless to say if the same could be said of racism, slavery, wife beating, witch hunts, or any war of aggression, then Democrats should also support those as well. Since the majority of American people are so ignorant they can be led to believe almost anything at least for a time, then there really isn't anything the Dems should oppose -- they just need to get their timing right so that they are in sync with the ignorant majority.
Harold Ford is a slimy, loathsome creature.
So Harold Ford would "vote" to commit crimes against the United States of America?
Fords comments epitomizes how many Democrats let republican talking points become the center point of the discussion and by the time you know it they are running and hiding.
that's slang for crazy coward talk which is what chenny is a crazy coward!
I don't really care for Chris Matthews, but he does seem to be good barometer for where popular sentiment and inside the beltway thinking are mixing, and if he's coming out this way we may actually be hitting a tipping point inside the beltway.
If the inside the beltway 'center' shifts to the left towards the real center of mass, we may start seeing real accountability for this torture fiasco Bush the lesser left us.
Jonnan
check out this right here..
http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/cheney_s_secre...
...Matthews treated the "ticking time bomb" nonsense as if it were completely valid. What the hell?
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