Replies to post #61435 on Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, Republicans keep using this phrase, but I don't think it means what they think it means.

On Tuesday, Karl Rove argued on Fox News that accountability for Bush administration officials who broke the law would make United States "the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses."

Almost immediately, the right embraced the argument as their new favorite. In just the past few days, in addition to Rove, the notion of the United States becoming a "Banana Republic" has been touted by radio host Bill Cunningham, Sean Hannity, Mark Steyn, and Glenn Beck, among others.

Yesterday, this blisteringly stupid argument reached the level of the United States Senate. Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) actually repeated the Rove-inspired nonsense in public:

McCain: "In Banana Republics they prosecute people for actions they didn't agree with under previous administrations."

Bond: "This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a Banana Republic than the United States of America. We don't criminally prosecute people we disagree with when we change office. There are lots of questions that could have been asked of the Clinton administration failing to recognize the war on terror. They did not. The Bush administration went forward, and that's the way our country should. The President said he was going to be forward looking and now he has opened up the stab in the back."



It would take too long to go through this foolishness word by word, so let's just address the broader point: these Republican lawmakers and officials are all using the same coordinated phrase, but they don't seem to know what a "Banana Republic" is.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a "Banana Republic" is an unaccountable chief executive who ignores the rule of law when it suits his/her purposes. The ruling junta in a "Banana Republic" eschews accountability, commits heinous acts in secret, tolerates widespread corruption, and generally embraces a totalitarian attitude in which the leader can break laws whenever he/she feels it's justified to protect the state.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Rove, McCain, Bond, Hannity, Beck, et al are so caught up in their partisan rage, they've failed to realize they have the story backwards. They're so far gone, they're so blinded by their rigid ideology, they have no idea that they're projecting. It's genuinely pathetic.

If our goal is to avoid looking like a "Banana Republic," then we would investigate those responsible for torture, which is, not incidentally, illegal. The accused would enjoy the presumption of innocence and due process rights. The process would be transparent, and those who act (and have acted) in our name would be held accountable.

It's the hallmark of a great and stable democracy: we honor the rule of law, even when it's inconvenient, and even when it meets the cries of small men with sad ideas.

To do otherwise, to retreat because a right-wing minority whines incessantly, would do more to make us look like a "Banana Republic" than anything else.

[teapeebubbles]

Cheney believes there are Bush-era torture documents pointing to the effectiveness of abusing detainees in U.S. custody, and wants the White House to release them. The House Minority Leader has Cheney's back.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, used the White House meeting to push for the release of more memorandums documenting the use of the harsh techniques, suggesting they could show that the interrogation methods were effective, as former Vice President Dick Cheney has claimed.

The president did not foreclose the release of more documents, officials briefed on the session said. But Mr. Obama suggested to Mr. Boehner that the additional information would not be definitive on the value of the information obtained from the detainees, they said.



It's a little odd for Boehner to suddenly see the value in releasing more classified torture materials. He and his allies have, after all, spent the last week insisting that the mere discussion undermines U.S. national security interests.

But that's what makes yesterday's request interesting. As Greg Sargent explained, "John Boehner and the House GOP leadership have adopted a new position on torture: The only classified info Obama should release about the torture program is that which could prove Dick Cheney's claim that torture worked to be true. This is not an exaggeration. It really is their position."

Right. To hear Boehner tell it, releasing memos pointing to torture is bad. Releasing memos pointing to the effectiveness of torture is good. Releasing the prior without the latter is bad; releasing the latter without the prior is good.

We don't even know if there are documents that separate the torture from the information gleaned from torture, but Boehner and Cheney would sure appreciate it if the president could find out.

Please.

And speaking of "effectiveness," publius had a good item yesterday, pointing out yet another serious flaw in evaluating torture policies based on their ability to produce information: it necessarily eliminates limits.

One could, for instance, drag in a detainee's child and begin torturing him or her in front of the detainee. I assume that even the most hardened torture advocates would draw a line there. If they didn't, that tells you pretty much all you need to know.

But if they do concede that certain methods go too far (i.e., that such things are relevant), then they're stuck having to argue that the methods we used simply aren't that bad. In other words, if they concede a line exists, then they're forced to argue that these methods don't cross it.

And defending these methods seems very difficult, if not completely disingenuous.