Posted on 05/13/2009 1:54:51 PM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON — Former Memphis Congressman Harold Ford Jr. is taking exception to MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ suggestion that Ford’s views on torture after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were “veering into Cheney territory.”
Ford sent an e-mail message to the Washington bureau of The Commercial Appeal today to clarify that he is “adamantly opposed to torture,” but that, “given the environment that our intelligence officials were operating in after 9/11, it is not surprising that ‘enhanced methods’ were executed in an effort to gain valuable and, in some cases, actionable, intelligence…”
Any effort to link me to former Vice President Cheney’s support for torture is wrong and inaccurate.”
Ford made his original comments on the MSNBC talk show “Hardball” on Monday and those comments are featured on the liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas’ DailyKos page under the headline “Pro-Torture Harold Ford Hardball Transcript.”
A transcript of his comments, slightly different from the one posted on DailyKos, indicates that Fords said: “The country was in a different place and 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 who would have voted a certain way, Chris, in that polling, and said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.”
Harold Ford is a Rat but I’d feel much safer with him as President than Obama, to be honest.
If you're going to really be honest, wouldn't feel safer with Barney Ruble as president as well?
lol. true..=P
Mr. Ford wants to be able to celebrate the safe results without acknowledging the cracked knuckles of the enemy.
Fail.
What are his odds of winning in the Vol State ~ I mean Ford, not Rubble ~ remote, I would guess?
As a Democrat you are not allowed to even think the right thing for even one moment.
Sorry Harold, but I’m sure Bambi and his buddies already have planned to throw you under the bus.
Any effort to link me to former Vice President Cheney’s support for torture is wrong and inaccurate.”
Hey Harold. You're absolutely right in the first paragraph and wrong ion the second. The first paragraph is PRECISELY where the Bush administration...including the Dick Cheney...were operating. It's an absolute crime that people are allowed to claim otherwise.
Let Canada deal with North Ko-Ree-uh. They’re not bizzee.
I wouldn't call them remote. IIRC, he only lost his Senate bid by 3(ish) percentage points. If he runs for Governor, I'm guessing he stands a fairly decent chance.
I think if ran against Alexander for the Senate, he'd get crushed however. Alexander if very popular.
The media talks about how "afraid" Republican pols are of the "extreme right wing". But, Ford's response here should tell everyone how afraid Dems are of their extreme left wing.
Considering that he's from a very red state, Ford could have come out with a very contrarian Democrat statement and praised Cheney and Bush for keeping the country safe - really establishing himself as a "different" kind of Dem for his likely future political constituency.
He could have said that while he strongly opposes Cheney on domestic policy, he has sympathetic feelings for Cheney's foreign policy and terrorism experience. Ford really missed an opportunity here, but he's too afraid of Moveon.org et. al, which demonstrates of leftist, not centrist, the Democrats really are right now.
3 things go against Ford for governor of TN.
1. We tend to elect a democrat for 8 years and then a republican for 8, then repeat. We will have had a democrat for 8 years when he will run. Its the republicans who should win.
2. He’s from Memphis. The rest of the state hates Memphis, and it is hard to overcome. TN is really 3 states in one. Republican east TN, Democrat West TN and the middle goes either eay.
3. His family. This is the one that helped sink him for the Senate. His family is as corrupt as they come, although he has never been fingered himself. His father was indicted and found not-guilty. His uncle was finally convicted and his aunt is in the TN Senate and is a joke.
"Enhanced interrogation" is not torture. They keep trying to maneuver us into defending torture. Enhanced interrogation is not torture. A tough interrogation is no fun, and its not supposed to be, but it is not torture.
Torture, just to give it a frame of reference, is what happens to Americans when they are captured. Americans are regularly tortured to death, so anyone who wants to crusade against torture certainly has ample stage upon which to emote. The torturers are out there. Any and every American who falls into their hands will meet the same end; they will be tortured to death. The only saving grace is that it usually goes pretty quickly.
Americans are not the torturers. Americans are the torturees. Just so we can keep our terms straight.
As for terrorists who fall into American hands, they'll have a tough couple of days, but once they've given up what they have to give up, they'll be fine. They'll get three squares, a cot, and all the books they want to read and all the time they never had before to read them. Their American counterparts, meanwhile, will be found cut up in pieces alongside a road somewhere. Or burned to death.
I think as conservatives we should be pleased with the stance Mr. Ford is taking here.
I agree with you.
Nice!
I think the trick here is to reward the behavior we would like to see more. When we punish people who help make our case we are not using common sense. We just seem like angry haters if we attack everything and anything a person says just because he is a Democrat.
Imus must be laughing his @ss off!
It is from a campaign commercial that the RNC ran against Harold Ford when he ran for Senate. (I think.)
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