White House Castigates Durbin for Remarks

AP ^ | June 16, 2005

[RedRover]

In fairness, the ADL did issue a rebuke to Durban but that's only one from your list.

[JewishRighter]

I'm not sure why the Jewish community or Jewish politicians have a special duty to defend President Bush and the military from outrageous charges. The military is the party being outrageously defamed here.

My point again, is that it should be the other side of the isle leading the counter attack against an outrage that is specifically identified with a particular political party. The military is not usually in the business of responding to comments of politicians: that is the job of our "fearless" Republican leadership.

I don't know if your last message is intended to defend the Republicans or to attack the Jews (your reference to the anti-Semite Buchanan makes me wonder) but I still don't get your point or particularly appreciate it.

[mwl1]

We need to turn up the heat. Call every RAT elected official that represents you -- federal, state and local -- and demand that they publicly repudiate Durbin's remarks.

Tell them, if they don't, they've lost your vote next time.

Politicians are singularly self-interested people.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

" I don't know if your last message is intended to defend the Republicans or to attack the Jews (your reference to the anti-Semite Buchanan makes me wonder) but I still don't get your point or particularly appreciate it."

Let me elaborate.
If Pat Buchanan said that the Nazi concentration camps were nothing more than places of loud music or hot and cold temperatures-the world would be outraged.
Durbin said basically the same thing- he made it seem as if the camps were comparable to the mild techniques at Gitmo.
If Durbin said holding a Bic lighter under somone's hand was comparable to what happened at the WTC, I would expect the 9/11 families to condemn the ridiculous and inappropriate comparison.
I was looking at Durbin's remarks from another angle.
Which is why I think the Jewish community should step up and remind people just what the camps were .
Lest people forget.
Shabbat Shalom.

[JewishRighter]

Thanks for the reply. I think you and I are seeing this two different ways. I think Durbin called our soldiers nazis: ie: that they are committing atrocities as bad as the ones done by the real nazis. You think Durbin is saying the nazis were only as bad as our troops, which is to say the nazis weren't so bad. Ergo, you think Jews should be outraged because the nazis were definitely evil and Durbin is diminishing what they did. I think if you look at it this way, you'll see that Durbin is not trying to cleanse the nazis, he's trying to besmirch our troops. So the outrage here is not over making the nazis better (which would be a Jewish issue), but over making our soldiers look evil, which is an issue for all good Americans to be outraged over and not something unique to good Jewish Americans. Since this took place in the political arena, I think the party that stands for traditional patriotism and real support for the troops should be screaming.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

[GregoryFul]

Where were these freakin' liberals and civil libertarians when US citizens were experiencing this same "torture"...occuring live on TV?

On their collective knees, sucking Klinton's you know what, of course!

[Wild Irish Rogue]

Thanks for understanding that I was in no way ,shape or form attacking anyone, but, Durbin.
The ADL issued this statement today, which expressed more eloquently and succinctly what I was trying to convey.
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4734_52.htm

" The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) to repudiate his remarks and apologize to the American people for distorting an important issue, with an inappropriate comparison to Nazi tactics."

" Whatever your views on the treatment of detainees and alleged excesses at the Guantanamo Bay facility, it is inappropriate and insensitive to suggest that actions by American troops in any way resemble actions taken by Nazis in their treatment of prisoners.
Suggesting some kind of equivalence between their interrogation tactics demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the horrors that Hitler and his regime actually perpetrated."

"We urge you to repudiate your remarks and apologize to the American people for distorting an important issue with an inappropriate comparison to Nazi tactics. "

[jwalsh07]

Actually Durbin was not trying to smear the troops. the pig was trying to smear President Bush. The left wing of the democrat party hates George W Bush more than they love their country, the soldiers who serve it or the Constitution that many of us have sworn an oath to. Nothing, not the losing of ground in the ME, not the comparison of Nazis or murdering Communists to Americas finest nor the consolidation of jihadists everywhere will deter them from their mission, smearing George W Bush.

[JewishRighter]

I wholeheartedly agree. Even with my healthy scepticism and my knowledge that party politics has been bloodsport since the founding of the republic, I don't think you can find a precedent for the way the Dems of our era have trashed every consideration for troops in harms way and national security in the sole purpose of bringing down the President and his party.

If giving aid and comfort to the enemy is a definition of treason, I accuse the democrats of treason.

[JewishRighter]

Thanks WIR. I looked at the ADL letter. Not bad. But it misses an important point: the apology is owed to the troops and personell responsible for Gitmo. And I'd still like to see some fighting spirit in the Republican congressional delegation.