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Durbin blames media for 'Nazi' flap
UPI ^ | June 17, 2005 | UPI

Posted on 06/17/2005 8:51:24 AM PDT by Commander Salamander

WASHINGTON, June 17 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says right-wing media misrepresented comments he made about abuse of terror suspects, which he compared to Nazi abuses.

Durbin late Tuesday read what he said was an e-mail message from an FBI agent regarding alleged prisoner abuse. Durbin said if it didn't identify the source of the information "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime."

Several high-ranking Republicans responded Thursday. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said, "The danger the loose comments such as that, comparison which have no basis in fact or history, could do harm to the men and women" in the U.S. military. Warner called for an apology.

Durbin did not, however, back down. Saying he wasn't criticizing service personnel, he blamed the right-wing media for taking his words out of context. He said abusive treatment of prisoners was something most likely in "repressive regimes" than the United States.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blame; dumbdick; durbin; liberalmedia; rightwingmedia; traitor; turbandurbin; turbanhead; vrwc
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Even though I actually said it, it's the media's falut.

LOL. What an absolute loser!

1 posted on 06/17/2005 8:51:25 AM PDT by Commander Salamander
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To: OXENinFLA

I thought this might be a good place for you to post your observations about Durbin's attempt to slightly change the wording.


2 posted on 06/17/2005 8:52:37 AM PDT by Peach
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To: Commander Salamander

Oh, I thought is was Bush's fault...


3 posted on 06/17/2005 8:52:51 AM PDT by alice_in_bubbaland ("Consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies")
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To: Commander Salamander

Don't blame others for your big, stupid mouth!


4 posted on 06/17/2005 8:52:52 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
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To: Commander Salamander

5 posted on 06/17/2005 8:54:46 AM PDT by Zacs Mom (Proud wife of a Marine! ... and purveyor of "rampant, unedited dialogue")
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To: Commander Salamander

Durbin's pulling a Clinton.


6 posted on 06/17/2005 8:54:55 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Commander Salamander
Durbin tried to rewrite his quote last night.
7 posted on 06/17/2005 8:55:32 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
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To: Commander Salamander

Loser is a damned good word. I wonder if his staff is a little tired of taking phone calls and emails of complaint. Just think, if that dope had not said what he said there would not be this flap. It is not the "media's" fault!


8 posted on 06/17/2005 8:56:30 AM PDT by Sunshine Sister
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To: Commander Salamander
"Right-wing media"? Even CNN and NYTimes picked it up and they are far from right. He must be talking about the other right.
9 posted on 06/17/2005 8:56:38 AM PDT by tobyhill (The war on terrorism is not for the weak!)
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To: AppyPappy

You are right. You said he would next claim he was taken out of context, which he was not.


10 posted on 06/17/2005 8:57:28 AM PDT by KC_Conspirator (This space outsourced to India)
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To: Commander Salamander
Durbin Oddly Silent About The Torture Closer To Home

Dick Durbin set himself apart in the Senate on Tuesday by proclaiming that one could not tell the difference between the behavior of detainees at Gitmo by American military person and that of Nazis, Stalin's gulag guards, or Pol Pot. Despite a national furor over his remarks, Durbin has refused to retract them, although he laughingly added yesterday that it was wrong to think that he had minimized the horrors of the Holocaust and the gulags by equating them with a lack of climate control and indoor plumbing in Gitmo interrogation rooms.

However, in his zeal to protect America from the Creeping New FascismTM of American servicemen, Durbin somehow missed an opportunity to find similar horrors much closer to home. John in Carolina notes that Durbin's political ally and fellow Democrat in Chicago, Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan, operates a jail that sounds like it has a lot more problems than Gitmo or anything else run by the American military.

Let's see if we can guess where the following abuses took place -- Gitmo or Cook County:

In one incident, an elite squad of 40 guards took over a maximum-security [unit] ... for the sole purpose of beating and terrorizing the prisoners. A jail investigator determined that the guards' misconduct was covered up by ... medical personnel, who filed false reports and refused or delayed treatment to the prisoners, and by the ... inspector general, who refused to cooperate with the investigation. In the other incident, five inmates in a special incarceration unit ... alleged that they were beaten by 20 or more ... as they lay cuffed and shackled on the floor.

Was that done in the sunny climes of our Cuban installation? No -- that happened in Sheahan's Chi-town jail, in 1999 and 2000. Durbin's pal promised that his jail would improve and that reports of torture and abuse would stop. And they did, mostly because unlike the whistleblowers at Abu Ghraib who were lauded for their efforts to end the isolated cases of abuse at that prison, Sheahan made sure he got rid of the squealers at the Cook County lockup.

Let's try this again. Gitmo or Cook County:

[A] prisoner ... said he was beaten unconscious by guards who had wrapped handcuffs around their fists to make the beating worse. ... Several days later, the whites of his eyes were nearly obscured by the red from blood vessels that had ruptured during the beating, and deep lacerations were held together by staples that had been applied to his scalp. Late last year ... another prisoner ... told of being dragged by several guards through a fire of burning paper and debris that had been raging in the cellblock. His account of this abuse was substantiated by blisters and deep burn marks on his leg.

Now that sounds like what Saddam did on off days when he wasn't feeling all that dastardly -- so this had to have happened at Gitmo, right? Wrong. That's still Durbin's pal Sheahan's Cook County lockup. Why hasn't Durbin taken to the floor of the Senate to decry this treatment? One would think that a man who wants to protect America from the taint of torture and abuse in order to ensure our purity might start in his own back yard.

We'll start taking Durbin seriously when he calls for the National Guard in Illinois to take over the Cook County Jail and demands a federal investigation of his political ally Michael Sheahan, for years of allegations involving abuses much more profound than anything contained in that silly e-mail Durbin read on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. Until then, chalk up Durbin's feigned moral outrage to the worst kind of political opportunism.

-- Captain Ed, captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
11 posted on 06/17/2005 8:58:07 AM PDT by OESY
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To: Commander Salamander
What a DICK.
12 posted on 06/17/2005 8:58:09 AM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Commander Salamander

Traitor Durbin [Dem - IL]


13 posted on 06/17/2005 8:58:12 AM PDT by af_vet_1981
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To: Commander Salamander

Durbin needs to resign. AlJazeera has been touting his words against the United States. Even Durbin would have a tough time saying AlJazeera is the right wing media.


14 posted on 06/17/2005 8:58:22 AM PDT by pieces of time
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To: Commander Salamander

I am a proud Illinoisan, the state that gave the Union Army Ulysses S. Grant.

However, in recent decades, we in Illinois have been skimming the bottom of the barrel...and there is nothing lower in Illinois than Dick Durbin. The guy does nothing for the state except keep liberals employed in many unnecessary, make-work nonprofits where they peddle their politically corrent, neo-communist jargon.

Now, finally, Durbin put his foot so deep in his mouth that you'd think he had a fetish.

Senator, be honorable for once in your life--resign and go home and sell used cars.


15 posted on 06/17/2005 8:58:46 AM PDT by Winston7000 (Near Chicago)
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To: Commander Salamander

Related thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1424850/posts
BUYER DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM ILLINOIS SENATOR


16 posted on 06/17/2005 8:58:48 AM PDT by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: OXENinFLA

I just found,haven't seen it posted yet,but can't figure out how to grab the letter and post it, can you?

House Republican Leadership Sends Letter to Pelosi on Durbin Comments

http://www.gopbloggers.org/mt/archives/001386.html


17 posted on 06/17/2005 8:59:30 AM PDT by hipaatwo (When you're in trouble you want all your friends around you...preferably armed!)
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To: Commander Salamander

they don't call him Dick Durbin for nuttin


18 posted on 06/17/2005 8:59:49 AM PDT by sully777 (If anyone asks, I'm a monger-monger.)
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To: Zacs Mom

Great photo -- that says it all !


19 posted on 06/17/2005 9:00:22 AM PDT by NewMediaFan (Fake but accurate)
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To: Zacs Mom

Bring back the most honorable of Senate traditions.

20 posted on 06/17/2005 9:00:41 AM PDT by dts32041 (Robin Hood, stealing from the government and giving back to tax payer. Where is he today?)
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