Setting Back The Cause
by digby
Some Democrats are calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign amid controversy surrounding pictures depicting U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners outside of Baghdad.
But others say the demand for pink slips is merely politics in an election year when Democrats are hoping to oust President Bush.
“The Congress will politicize this, will spend too much time investigating it,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., told Fox News. “The other danger is, the administration will be defensive about this instead of being aggressive … This has been a setback for our cause.”
[…]
Lieberman told Fox News that the calls for Rumsfeld’s ouster are a distraction from the larger picture.
“We’re in the middle of a war — you wouldn’t want to have the secretary of defense change unless there’s really good reason for it and I don’t see any good reason at this time,” Lieberman said.
But the senator said it’s imperative to get to the bottom of what happened as soon as possible.”Let’s flush it all out, clean it up and get back to the war on terrorism,” Lieberman continued.
For a guy who considers himself one of the moral guardians of the nation he sure has a high tolerance for torture, abuse and humiliation. They certainly “flushed it all out,” “cleaned up” Abu Ghraib and moved on, didn’t they? And keeping Rumsfeld has really been just great for “the cause.” (Characterizing oversight as “politicizing” has worked out really well too.)
It occurs to me as I read that article (with ever increasing anger) that this was a defining moment for Lieberman and perhaps it gets to the heart of why the visceral resentment among Democrats is so strong. Here’s a man whose reputation rests upon his moral rectitude and he could not see that the horror of Abu Ghraib was a sign of abject immorality (and failed leadership) that required condemnation of the chain of command that endorsed it. How could this be?
This was, after all a man who said this in 1998 about the moral dangers presented by the president having had an extramarital affair:
I have come to this floor many times in the past to speak with my colleagues about my concerns, which are widely-held in this chamber and throughout the nation, that our society’s standards are sinking, that our common moral code is deteriorating, and that our public life is coarsening. In doing so, I have specifically criticized leaders of the entertainment industry for the way they have used the enormous influence they wield to weaken our common values. And now because the President commands at least as much attention and exerts at least as much influence on our collective consciousness as any Hollywood celebrity or television show, it is hard to ignore the impact of the misconduct the President has admitted to on our children, our culture and our national character.
[…]
Such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral. And it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children, which is as influential as the negative messages communicated by the entertainment culture.
[…]
I am afraid that the misconduct the President has admitted may be reinforcing one of the most destructive messages being delivered by our popular culture –namely that values are essentially fungible. And I am afraid that his misconduct may help to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong left in our society.
That was such a stirring appeal to our national values and our morals. The president lied about a sexual affair and the details were splashed all over the media by Republicans withchunters, using the legal system as a partisan tool. Yet Joe felt he had to speak out against the president on this because the nation’s moral authority was at stake and the president’s misbehavior was sending a bad message to the nation’s youth.
Abu Ghraib, on the other hand, didn’t even deserve a GOP kangaroo congressional investigation or a call for the firing of the man who was in charge when it happened because it might make the administration “less aggressive” in the future.
Joe’s very first statement about the Abu Ghraib revelations on the floor of the Senate was this weaselly peroration:
Mr. Secretary, the behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American. It deserves the apology that you have given today and that have been given by others in high positions in our government and our military.
I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.
And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody.
So it’s part of — wrongs occurred here, by the people in those pictures and perhaps by people up the chain of command.
But Americans are different. That’s why we’re outraged by this. That’s why the apologies were due.
Yes, by all means let’s pat ourselves on the back for being better than terrorists. That is, after all, the guage by which we now judge our morality in the Great GWOT.
He was also only one of six Dem senators, and the only one from a Blue State, who voted for the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales. He made another of his memorable speeches on his behalf:
As I look back post-September 11, what seems to be in Judge Gonzales’s memo and memos submitted by the State Department, by the Defense Department and others, there is a very serious and classically American debate going on about how to handle al Qaeda and the Taliban – prisoners taken from their membership. And what is the relevance of the Geneva Convention to those people? It is the argument of a nation that cares about the rule of law.
You can agree with Judge Gonzales’s position in this matter or not. I happen to agree with the ultimate decision made. And the decision was, in my opinion, a reasonable one, and ultimately a progressive one.
This was February 5, 2005 long after it was well known that torture, sexual humiliation and abuse had taken place in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. And it was well known that many of these prisoners were not terrorists. That was where George Bush’s policies, under the guidance of Alberto Gonzales, had led — and everybody knew it.
On marital infidelity, Joe Lieberman, moral conscience of the Democratic party, is uncompromising. On torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners he sees shades of gray. From where I sit, Joe Lieberman’s failure to publicly and resolutely condemn this torture regime, (much less vote to reward those who instigated it) puts the lie to his claim to moral superiority and personal integrity. A man who cannot see unequivocally that torture is wrong cannot be a moral leader. I resent the fact that he seems to believe that he’s entitled to the benefits of that reputation when he has proven he is actually little more than a puritanical sexual scold — on the big moral question of the day he has fallen very, very short.
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