Another Useless Dick

As I'm sure a few temporarily brave Germans and Russians did decades earlier, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Wimp) has apologized for telling the truth.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) yesterday offered a tearful apology on the Senate floor for comparing the alleged abuse of prisoners by American troops to techniques used by the Nazis, the Soviets and the Khmer Rouge, as he sought to quell a frenzy of Republican-led criticism.

Durbin, the Democratic whip, acknowledged that "more than most people, a senator lives by his words" but that "occasionally words will fail us and occasionally we will fail words." Choking up, he said: "Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies."

He singled out the victims of the Holocaust, which Durbin called "the greatest moral tragedy of our time," as well as U.S. troops.

Durbin's surrender came after a week of full-scale attack from the right-wing BS machine, combined with basically no support from the Democratic party BS machine.

Comments from the White House and other elected officials helped to keep the spotlight on Durbin. Also on June 16 , White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the remarks "reprehensible" and "a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws."

He wasn't talking about THOSE men and women in uniform, Scottie. He was talking about the ones who torture people, just like the Nazis and Soviets and Khmer Rouge did. And, of course, their criminal leaders, especially those in the White House.

And then there's John McCain (whom I think may be tied with Colin Powell for most dangerous man in America, since they both are well-spoken and seem reasonable but totally sell out when it comes to war crimes):

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I think that Senator Durbin owes the Senate an apology -- I don't know if censure would be in order -- but an apology, because it does a great disservice to men and women who suffered in the gulag and in Pol Pot's 'killing fields.' "

How, how, HOW does it POSSIBLY do a disservice to them? First off, 99% of them are dead, but I would think that most survivors would believe that the only possible good that could come from their experience would be as a warning to future generations to see that it doesn't happen again. Furthermore, Durbin's original statement was entirely accurate. I read part of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago many years ago, and the section of the FBI report on Gitmo that Durbin read would fit right in. (As would the story of the murder of Dilawar at Bagram in Afghanistan, or the various stories out of Abu Ghraib.) To be sure, neither the hundreds being held at Gitmo nor the thousands being held in Iraq is anywhere near the scale of the Holocaust or the gulag or the killing fields. Yet. But none of those started out huge. They grew to their genocidal proportions because those who supported them shouted down those who didn't. And that's just what happened with Dick "Dick" Durbin.