Tuesday, May 11, 2004

They had it coming Sen. James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, has had enough of the crying and moaning over torture of Iraqi prisoners. It's real simple, he says: The guys who were mistreated had it coming. As quoted by CNN and Reuters: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," he said. "These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," said Inhofe. "If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners -- they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. .... Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals." 6:12:03 PM    comment []

Torturegate, the word count Google: 102 Technorati: 15 Yahoo! News: 6 Google News: 6 Nexis: 2 Daypop: 1 Blogdex: 0 10:49:41 AM    comment []

Torturegate ... is on the air! I just got .15 seconds (yes, 15/100ths of a second, or about 12 gnat heartbeats) of fame deriving from my historic role as the father of torturegate (the word). This sliverette of recognition arrived in my Outlook Express inbox from The O'Franken Factor at 8:45 a.m. PDT: Dan, I’d like to talk to you ASAP to ask a question about the word “torturegate”—my number is [deleted], or you could email me your number. Much appreciated! Ben Wikler Producer The O’Franken Factor Yeah, I got all hot and bothered about it. I called as soon as I saw the note, having visions of snappy on-air repartee with Al Franken and perhaps the spontaneous creation of a new career in radio. But the reality fell somewhat short of that. As Mr. Wikler told me, Mr. Franken was talking about torturegate (the word) this morning on the show, and specifically the claim from Fox's Sean Hannity that the word was invented by Democrats who are part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to politicize the abuse allegations and get rid of Rumsfeld. So, off the air, he asked me -- probably the world authority on torturegate (the word) -- whether I was a Democrat? whether I had called for Rumsfeld's resignation? whether I was part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to politicize the abuse case (answers: yes; no; no, I think). I would love to have talked to Franken, though. 10:17:53 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dan Brekke.