I should really watch C-Span more often.

Last night during debate on the Energy Bill, my home state Senator Dick Durbin proved that Illinois isn’t only known as the Land of Lincoln. We’re also the Motherland of Moonbats.

Durbin, whose colorlessness as a Senator is something of a running joke here, trained his less than titanic intellect and monotonous speaking skills on the United States Armed Forces, taking them to task for torturing the poor terrorists who have had the horrible misfortune of falling into our boodthirsty hands: (HT: Little Green Footballs)

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. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Good God, Dick! WTF did we do? Did we boil them in oil? Did we put them on the rack and stretch their innocent bodies? Did we…did we…did we piss on the Koran?

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here—I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ..... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

Before we get to Drudging Dick’s rant against our methods, did any one else find his statement “I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate.” the kind of melodramatic baloney a prosectutor would use in a murder case? I mean, it’s the kind of language that a lawyer would have used back in Lincoln’s day for God’s sake! Especially since what was “added to the RECORD” was so mild that we might call into question Senator Cornpone’s judgement and common sense. One thing we won’t question, however, is our lovable Senator’s flair for the dramatic.

Acting like a 12 year old drama queen is the Senator’s specialty. When one consider’s what this terrorist had to endure – extreme heat, extreme cold, loud rap music – perhaps Senator Moonbat should take a walk down Lawrence Avenue in Chicago in the middle of the Summer (or Winter). Every year, several hundred Chicagoan’s die as a result of no air conditioning during the Summer or heat during the Winter. And the overbearing presence of loud rap music is part of the “color” of some of those neighborhoods. And yet, we strangely have never heard the Senator get up on the floor of the Senate and lambast his good buddy Mayor Daley for allowing such things to occurr.

It would seem the Senator has more sympathy for people who want to blow us to kingdom come than he has for his own constituents.

Par for the course with this moonbat. One might also wonder what our treatment of terrorists at Guantanamo had to do with the Energy Bill and why my home state Senator felt it necessary to add this fascinating yet irrelevant information to the debate. How dare I ask such a loaded question! After all, any time is a good time to compare the military to Nazis, the KGB, or Pol Pot.

UPDATES (GALORE!)

Dick Durbin hasn’t gotten this much attention from anybody in years. Here are some samples from the Shadow Media:

The Senator made Michelle Malkin’s “Republicans are Hitler” roundup today.

The Peoria Pundit:

Durbin lacks perspective, and it’s a tragic flaw. right now, we are at war with terrorists and insurgents. These people will no doubt try to use Durbin’s rhetoric to recruit more suicide bombers and other fighters. These is such a thing as lending aid and comfort to the enemy during war time, and Durbin comes close to that line and may in fact have crossed it. Durbin and others can claim that it’s not his fault if Osama bin Laden used Durbin’s words to rally the troops. Obviously it is: Durbin’s words carry authority. There are repercussions when someone in his position accuses his very own nation of engaging in genocide.

I’d say that’s spot on.

Conservative Eyes:

I think this is one of the grossest and sickest statements to be made yet. This is beyond hyperbole and rhetoric. I really do not have to explain how brutal and murderous the three organizations Durbin compared our soldiers to. Everyone who reads this blog would know how many deaths they are accountable for.

This strikes at the heart of the “I support the troops, but not the war” mentality of a lot of Democrats. One would hope that Durbin does not speak for a majority of Democrats, but he speaks for many. It really shows his motives and how much affection he has for our troops. Whenever I hear Durbin say that he “Supports the Troops,” I know it will be a bald face lie. How could you support someone who you think are no better than genocidal maniacs?

There have been so many posts from military people about this kind of sophistry on the part of Democrats. “I support the trooops not the war” is baloney, according to them. In order to really support the troops, you must support their mission.

Sorry Dick, it won’t wash.

Clarity and Resolve:

It’s this sort of absurd, pernicious, and grossly disproportionate anti-America leftist rhetoric (under a thin veneer of earnest patriotism for the nonexistent American dystopia of their febrile dreams) that emboldens our enemies, puts our lives and the lives of our soldiers in danger, and alienates the left further from the mainstream. It’s this type of insensate, over-the-rainbow disregard for the reality that America is now faced with—a reality that we did not ask for—that made a lot of people like myself vote Republican for the first time ever this past November.

Amen.

Swanky Conservative:

It’s worth noting that according to Estrada, Sen. Durbin spun out of control while debate was being held on an energy bill… I would ask the honorable Senator what is so damn wrong with treating people who were captured on the field of battle to an air-conditioned room? Or, alternately, to an air temperature of 100 degrees? Ever been to Del Rio, Texas in June? It’s 120-plus! And people live there! You wanna come down here and start pontificating about abuses?

Good point.

And what fisking of a moonbat would be complete without a word from John Hawkins:

May I also add that since we have a United States Senator acting as if making some Al-Qaeda terrorist chilly is the equivalent of torturing the guy to death, that it may lead to our interrogators backing off instead of prodding these terrorists for info. How would you like to find out after some horrific terrorist attack that a terrorist at Gitmo knew what was going to happen, but didn’t say anything because we didn’t push him hard enough? Americans could die by the thousands as a direct result of an incident like that, as a direct result of the sort of comments made by soft-on-terrorism hacks like Dick Durbin.

Don’t worry John…Durbin and his ilk would find some way to blame the Republicans even for that.

Why not tell us what you really think, Paul?

Dick Durbin is ignorant of history, a complete jackass and owes everyone in uniform an apology—then he should resign.

Hit ‘em again, Captain:

In any case, Durbin owes the administration and the American servicemen in Gitmo and elsewhere an apology. Durbin’s idiotic equating of the conditions he described from the e-mail he supposedly received to the genocide of the Jews, Cambodians, and gulag victims cheapens the horrors of those atrocities, and he owes the survivors an apology as well. His hysterical rants have damaged the war effort by providing propaganda for the Islamists with no rational basis whatsoever—and for that, he owes everyone an apology.

Jeez…with so many people asking for an apology from the guy, you’d think the idiot would take the hint and at least concede he may have misspoke. Not our Dicky boy. In fact, like a Missouri Mule, the Senator has dug in his heels and failed to budge: (Via Drudge)

News of the Democrat’s comparison created a buzz around the Internet today, fueled by sound bites of yesterday’s Senate floor speech on radio talk shows. By this afternoon, Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna asked Durbin to apologize.

Durbin says the Bush administration should apologize for abandoning the Geneva Conventions.

Wha? Who? WTF? Would someone please tell me why Democrats are so enamoured of these international “apologies?” Do they really believe that having the government say “so sorry, please” actually makes a difference to anyone anywhere? And the idea of apologizing to the world for classifying people who didn’t fall under the Geneva Convention in the first place as “enemy combatants” is loony. What would we apologize for? That an 80 year old treaty couldn’t envision a day where extra-territorial terrorists would be incarcerated for the protection of civilized people everywhere? Are we responsible for the failure of the the signers of the Geneva Protocols to gaze into a crystal ball and write something that would cover this unique, first time in world history situation?

I agree with Paul at Wizbang…this jerk should apologize to the entire country and then resign. The only problem is, in order for him to do that, he would need to possess a modicum of decency and an empathy for others. Since it’s obvious that this embarassment to my state does not possess those qualities or others that would force him to recognize the shame he’s brought our state and his office, one can only hope that the voters of Illinois see fit to retire this galoot when his term is up in 2008.

Okay…just one more update, I promise….

Rusty Shackleford has a brother in Iraq and took Senator Snark’s comments personally:

Right. My brother, just like Adolf Eichmann, once gave me a super-atomic wedgie.

The only thing more morally inept then comparing what is happening at Guantanamo to the tens of millions of people killed in the gulags, is to not back down once you’ve been called on it.

“Morally inept”...Ab.So.Lute.Ly. Perfect.