Now I feel ashamed…
I’ve reduced a grown man to tears. Well, not me specifically. Dick Durbin doesn’t know me from Bugs Bunny. But the way he was trying to wiggle out from underneath his slanderous comments about the military, one would think he had some familiarity with another Loony Toons character.
Perhaps the skunk Pepe Le Pew.
“Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,” the Illinois Democrat said. “To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.”
His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.
“They’re the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them,” he said.
Now why would anyone think that comparing our interrogators at Guantanamo to the minions of the most murderous trio of cutthroats in history would somehow “cross the line?” We know that SS interrogators routinely blasted polka music to torture our Glenn Miller loving GI’s. And who could forget the insidious torture invented by Stalin himself? The devilish “drink it or wear it” water torture. It must have driven Stalin’s opponents insane.
It turns out that Mayor Daley may have been the catalyst for Durbin’s mea culpa.
On Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley — a fellow Democrat — added his voice to the chorus of criticism, saying, “I think it’s a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that.”
Durbin said in his apology: “I made reference to Nazis, to Soviets, and other repressive regimes. Mr. President, I’ve come to understand that’s a very poor choice of words.
I would have loved being a fly on the wall in Daley’s office when that telephone conversation was going on. His Honor does not suffer fools gladly. I imagine Daley did most of the talking and Durbin did most of the crying.
I’m glad Senator Durbin’s education about what is and isn’t a “poor choice of words” has been completed. Now perhaps we can get on with winning the war in Iraq without any more foolishness from this empty headed galoot of a Senator who brought shame to my home state with his calumnious charges.
UPDATE
Predictably, the right side of the Shadow Media is not satisfied with Dicky’s tearful “non-apology” apology:
Color me unimpressed. His fellow party members will now ask us all to move along. I’ll consider doing that if they now will admit that Durbin’s original statement slandered the military and debased the memories of those millions of victims that truly experienced what genocidal maniacs do with their innocent captives. If not, then they are just playing word games until they discover the right combination to climb out of the box in which Durbin has put them.
Don’t hold your breath, Ed.
A genuine apology would disavow the Nazi-Khmer Rouge-Soviet comparisons. A genuine apology would distinguish between those hellish regimes and our own. A genuine apology would actually confess true error, not just in clumsy phraseology (an error of happenstance). A genuine apology would confess that his words were intentionally grandstanding and slanderous, and that these words were deliberately chosen for effect, not blundered into by some sloppy draftsmanship.
Ace hit the nail on the head. The remarks were not accidental. They have been part of a Democratic strategy on the Hill in the last couple of weeks to tar the military and bring them down in the eyes of the American people. Charlie Rangel comparing what’s going on in Iraq with the Holocaust was well as other remarks by Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi lead one to come to the conclusion that this is a grand political strategy.
Guess they better be looking for a new tack. How about supporting the President?
Well…it could happen.
The Political Teen has the video.
LaShawn Barber is thinking Dr. Suess instead of Bugs Bunny.
This post is also available at Blogger News Network.
8:00 pm
Earth to Superhawk: Nobody cares. Next to Bush lying this country into the current military quagmire in Iraq, your Durbin obsession isn’t a fart in a hurricane.
A couple trackbacks from some equally pathetic rightwing blogs and you’ve already convinced yourself you’re riding to stardom on this horseshit?
Talk about a wasted life…
9:51 pm
Larry, you’ve missed so many of the DNC talking points! You only have “military quagmire” in Irag. C’mon, if your going to be a party sycophant, read the Cribbed-Notes.
Horse-Shit is awesome in the garden. The production of tomatoes and, dare I type this, “potatoes” (that felt pretty good) is incredible!
Abu-Ghriab (or whatever) and Gitmo are actually Mickey Mouse. It’s gotta twist your shorts that there is no traction, in spite of “your” media machines. It’s gotta burn many circuits your team is on the sidelines.
Got some news, pal. Your view of the world is the “fart in the wind”. Lay off of the eggs, okay?
The left has been passed by the side of the road. We were attacked. We have responded, and will continue to respond. We will not only win this war, we are going to march on a road of bones!
selah!
10:48 pm
10,000 Angels will swear you were wrong
I’ve watched the video of Sen. Durbin’s apology and I think it was more than slimy. He apologised to “some” who thought his remarks were in poor taste. He invoked the words of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, to indicate that, if his words turned out…
10:52 pm
Durbin Apologizes Weakly A Week Later (Updated!)
Fox News, AP, and other outlets report that Senator Dick Durbin has apologized for his comparison between the American military and Nazis, Khmer Rouge, and Stalinist genocidal maniacs: Under fire from Republicans and some fellow Democrats, Sen. Dick Du…
6:26 am
[...] ’t let Dick Durbin off the hook too quickly. Who’s speaking out? Matt May, the Rightwing Nuthouse, Chris Short, Will Collier, and others who sort [...]
6:26 am
Dick “A day late and a dollar Short” Durbin
For those of you playing along at home, let’s recap:
06.14.05 - Future Former Senator Dick Durbin makes inflamatory, ridiculous, erroneous remarks on the Senate floor comparing US treatment of enemy cobatant detainees to the attrocities of Na…
8:05 am
Whoda thunk that a wee mayor could dope-slap a United States Senator into submission. I guess it shows to go you that the Chicago Machine is alive and well.
10:06 am
Sorcerer of Sticking Your Head and Arms Out …
Today’s dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny … I got my winch!
11:46 pm
To Larry Brown: What the diagnosis for your short tem memory loss is, I won’t attempt to speculate on…WJ Clinton warned us of Sadaam’s WMD in 1998…it’s the old “people who live in glass houses…” bit that you should take to heart. As for Durbin….he’s no different than Boxer, Kennedy, etc. duking it out for an Al Jazeera Emmy. Free speech is a wonderful thing, even if, like Durbin, you aren;t sure if the info is accurate. If the Senator wer a judge, he’d hold the execusion before the accused murderer was even booked, much less tried…let them have their rants and spew the latest bumper sticker rhetoric. They know full well that Durbin’s comments will bolster Al Qaeda and the insugents, thus giving them more dead soldiers to smirk about in private and, when on camera, wipe a tear from their eye. World War II had Tokyo Rose and we have Kennedy and Durbin, etc. It’s nice to live in a country so free that you can assist the enemy and go home in a limo to plot the next day’s attack. If Al Qaeda has an equivelant of the medal of honor, Bin Ladon would pin it on him…right before beheading him. Durbin obviously doesn’t know who he’s screwing with.