Daily Howler - June 22, 2005

IT’S HARD TO DECIDE! Had Bush decided on war by July? For Woodward, it’s hard to decide: // link // print // previous // next //

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2005

FIRST LESSON IN AMERICAN NEW THINK: Now that Durbin has offered his semi-apology (note all the “ifs” in his statement), we’ve learned our first lesson in American New Think. To fully understand that key first lesson, let’s reread the FBI report on which Disgraced Durbin offered comment:

FBI REPORT (7/29/04): On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold...On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

So here’s the first lesson in American New Think: The next time you read a report like that, you will not think it came from a “mad regime,” the term Durbin used in his troubling comments.