My post earlier today equating the Time article on the detention log of one of the Gitmo prisoners with the Monty Python “Spainish Inquisition” skit was done with the hope that finally the rest of the world had come to its senses and put the brouhaha at the detention facility into some kind of context.

I didn’t bank on conservatives and Republicans adopting the themes and memes of leftist apologists and supporting a shut down of the most important interrogation center that we have.

This is nuts. As several commenters around the Shadow Media have pointed out this morning, the techniques as described in the detention log are less severe than the rigmarole that fraternity pledges go through. How far are we prepared to go to satisfy those who will never, ever, ever, be satisfied?

It’s time to face facts: The only thing that will satisfy our war critics is the complete and total withdrawal of American forces and an abject apology on the part of President Bush with an admission that the war was illegal . Even then, they would push for the President’s impeachment.

Such a course of action would not satisfy our critics in the Muslim world. Nothing less than a total withdrawal of all American troops from the middle east and an apology for the last 1000 years of western atrocities would settle the score.

And now some prominent conservatives like Bill Kristol and Senator Chuck Hagel have called for the closing of the camp at Guantanamo ostensibly to boost our image abroad. The reasoning is that keeping the facility open causes us more harm internationally than any return we’re getting in intelligence.

First of all, I wonder how they could possibly know something like that. Secondly, if you don’t know the whole picture of what we’re getting from detainees - what little bits and pieces are fitting into a larger puzzle - how can you make any kind of a guesstimate that it’s not worth the bad press?

Because that’s what we’re talking about here. This is a story that has been massaged, manipulated, fondled, and embraced by people who could give a good goddamn about the prisoners health, or America’s image, or America’s values, or anything else except their out of control, unreasoning hatred of George W. Bush and their desire to lay him low.

Michelle Malkin:

The new GOP anti-Gitmo squad’s position amounts to a cut-and-run strategy–panicking in the face of ill-informed, hysterical attacks from our military’s enemies at home and abroad. Even if, as Kristol claims, unnamed JAGs and senior NSC staffers and State Department officials have problems with how Gitmo has been run, there is no question from the mountains of documents the Pentagon has released to the ACLU and others that the military tracks and investigates alleged abuses, and has taken corrective action when they are warranted. I don’t know who Kristol’s anonymous sources are, but I’ll take Gen. Myers’ word over theirs sight unseen.

Amen, sister. It seems that since the election victory, Republicans have massively retreated on the very principals and ideas that got them elected in the first place! This does the party no good. It does the President no good. All it does is garner a little publicity in the MSM for the likes of McCain, Hagel, Voinovich, and others who have found the quickest way to get a sound bite on the nets or quoted in the New York Times is agree with our leftist opponents. The consequences are there for all to see:

1. Failure to get an up or down vote on all the President’s judicial nominees.
2. Failure to break Democratic delaying tactics on UN Ambassador-designate John Bolton
3. Failure to move social security reform along, including the abandonment of private accounts

A visitor from another planet reading the newspaper today might wonder who won the election in 2004?