How comforting - Molly Ivins, pundit laureate

[nosmokes]

go to original

Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
06.15.04

How comforting
Bush, lawful torture and the science of the Vatican

AUSTIN, Texas -- Such comfort. At the close of the G-8 summit, described by President Bush as "very successful" (except we didn't get anything we wanted), the president offered us comfort on the uncomfortable topic of torture: "Look, I'm going to say it one more time. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to the law. That ought to comfort you."

"We're a nations of laws," he went on. "We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might comfort you."

There, don't you feel all better now? How comforting to know the Department of Justice memo on the subject of torture advises it "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impaired bodily function or even death." (Memo available on washingtonpost.com.) Just beating the living crap out of someone doesn't count at all. The Geneva Conventions are not binding on us, nor are any other international agreements if it impedes the war effort, says the DOJ. As Professor Michael Froomkin of Miami University told Salon: "The lawyers who wrote it are guilty. The people who asked them to write it, who read it and who may have acted on it -- they're the people who really have to answer for it." Under the DOJ theory of the Constitution, the president can not only approve torture, he can also approve genocide.
~snip~
.
.
.

I take great comfort in the idea that the Pope will decide our policy on stem cell research, not to mention abortion and gay marriage. The Vatican is never wrong on scientific questions.
~snip~

(c) 2004 Creators Syndicate

[salinen]

1. I never listen or read Molly

because O'really says she's a radical.

[NMDemDist2]

2. I love Molly

too bad she's so mad she's not funny.

Course as I look around, I see nothing to laugh about, so...

Get mad and stay mad Molly girl

[NNadir]

3. Someone should ask Ms. Ivens if Bush is still the same as Gore.

That was her primary idea of the last Presidential campaign.

I, for one, am not inclined to forgive her for that bit.

[nosmokes]

5. you'll hafta back that up some for me, please.

if she said that, mayhaps you saw it out of context? it sure doesn't sound like molly.

[Avalon Sparks]

8. What are you talking about?

Molly has been writing columns against Shrub since he was Governor of Texas!!! She even wrote a book dissing Shrub. She supported Gore in the last election.

Please show where Molly ever said Bush was the same as Gore.

[Raster]

11. Molly has written TWO books dissing gee-dubya and $hrubco

[mooseandsquirrel]

14. Molly voted for Nader

She told her readers that in the states where the vote would be close, that Gore should get the nod. But in Texas, where Bush Boy had it sown up, she herself voted for Nader. I find that discomforting. But I do like Molly very much.

m&s
http://moose-and-squirrel.com

[Bridget Burke]

10. Why she voted for Nader......

She's criticized plenty of Democrats in her day--plenty of Texas Democrats have deserved it--but she never said that Bush was the same as Gore. We were told our votes "wouldn't count"--the Electoral College, you know. So she voted for Nader.

As it worked out, none of our votes mattered. I was proud to have voted for Gore, myself.

You've got a hell of a lot of reading to do before you can speak of her "primary idea". And you spelled her name wrong: it's "Ivins".

[NNadir]

13. I'm sorry, but she loaned her voice to the Repuke Nader and sought to give

that paranoid schizophrenic creature legitimacy it did not deserve. By publicly advocating a vote for the CNN Corporate Whore Nader, she certainly wasn't put much question into the absurd and contemptible notion BUSH = GORE. Given that Ivins is from Texas, she ought to have known better.

I spell Ivins A-S-S. As far as I'm concerned, her weak protests against Bush are rather reminiscent of the works of those insane arsonist firemen you hear about.

I don't need to read much more of Ms. Ivin's work. Her participation in one of the great political tragedies of our time, the installation of Bush in 2000 is all I need to know.

[struggle4progress]

15. Of course, you're really misrepresenting Ivins' position.

She said essentially: "If your vote doesn't matter anyway, consider voting Nader. But if you're in a swing state, vote lesser of two evils."

Of course, there were two million uncounted "spoiled" ballot in and another 100,000 folks kicked off the voting rolls as "felons" in the 2000 Florida election, which seems to have been decided by a few hundred votes -- so it seems likely that election fraud (rather than Nader) was the real problem.

Judiciously Green
10.26.00
Voting for Nader is a privilege for some states only

Remember Gene McCarthy? No? Well, he helped swing Nixon into office with is idealistic campaign.
<snip>
People who work two and even three jobs to support their kids get so tired -- you can't imagine how tired -- and guilt and depression and anxiety all pile on, too. The difference between Gore and Bush matters to those folks.
<snip>
In Texas, we'll vote for Nader and a perfect world. You swing-state progressives need to make the hard choice -- but you're not making it just for yourselves.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=8841


Nader, Nader, he's our man
July 13, 2000
<snip>
For short-term strategy, let's get Nader the 15 percent support in the polls that the Debate Commission says he needs to appear in the presidential debates. The point here is to move the debate. I am so sick of having to listen to Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh Republicans and the Democrats who keep caving to them that I'll vote Nader in a New York minute.

OK, that's because I live in Texas, where a vote for Nader is a "free vote." Our electors are going to Dubya no matter how Democrats here vote, so for us, this is the equivalent of a primary vote: Go with your heart.

The same is true in states with the reverse situation. Massachusetts and New York will go Democratic no matter how the progressives vote; and if we can get Nader and the Green Party the 5 percent they need to qualify for federal spending in 2004, we will, in fact, move the debate. There's every reason to do it, and no reason not to.

As for you voters in swing states, where you might actually make a difference -- why don't we wait and see how it looks in November?

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2000/166

[nosmokes]

16. *that* sounds like molly. *that* makes sense.

and i have never known the woman to not make sense, no.

thanks much for the post struggle, that puts the issue into perspective.

[radiclib]

17. McCarthy helped Nixon how?

By scaring the shit out of LBJ, ultimately forcing him to drop out? What, was LBJ a shoo-in to beat Nixon? I don't think so.
On edit: OK, I read the article. Molly wrote in McCarthy in the general election rather than vote for the Hump. Shame.

[struggle4progress]

18. Well, here's what MI wrote:

<snip>
So I helped elect Richard Nixon president by writing in Gene McCarthy; and if you ask me, 30 years on, it's hard to think of a worse turn I could have done my country.
<snip>



To me (s4p), it sounds like she blew the horn hard for the swing state folk not making the same mistake she made 30 years ago.

[NNadir]

19. Look here. Ms. Iven's worked to undermine Gore in favor of Bush.

There was absolutely no need to come down on Al Gore, who would have been a very fine President in a critical time. He was afterall the politician who politically framed the most important issue of our time which is, irrespective of whatever trivial bullshit the media tells you, global warming.

Whining about the (extremely minor compared to this shit) faults of the Democrats was bullshit. She should have been sounding the clarion call to stop these people. Instead she chose to damn with faint praise.

Iven's KNEW who Bush was, better than most people in the United States. She betrayed her country to promote two criminal doublespeaking liars, Nader and Bush. Bush is a Republican war criminal, and Nader is a Republican domestic criminal.

Fuck Nader. Fuck Bush. Fuck Ivens. She poured gasoline all over the straw and now she has the temerity and absolute gracelessness to complain about the fire consuming all of us. What a pig.

[Martin Eden]

4. It never ceases to amaze me how:

#1 Shrub can say something so blatantly asinine and false;
#2 The media doesn't jump down his throat for it.

"Look, I'm going to say it one more time. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to the law. That ought to comfort you."

"We're a nations of laws," he went on. "We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might comfort you."

I mean, c'mon! It is quite obvious and no secret whatsoever that interrogation methods which violate the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law have been Bush policy for about two years now.

With the corporate media and the skewed notion of "balanced coverage" for treating opposing arguments as equally valid no matter how ludicrous one of them might be, I'm beginning to think that pushing the threshhold of credulity further and further into the absurd has been part of the strategy all along.

In Orwellian Amerika, most of the inmates don't even realize they're in the asylum.

[myopic4141]

7. The view of a fanatic.

It is said that the first casualty of war is the truth. It is the same with fanatics. Not because what comes out is actually propaganda; but, because the person actually believes what is being said. Shrubby's problem is that he lives in a world of fantasy where he believes that he has the absolute truth and God's law outshines mans law. It is his absolute truth position that allows him to state that he and his minions remain within the law although he and they actively seek ways to circumvent the spirit of the law. It is much like what Christ accused the Pharisees of doing regarding Jewish law at the time. Bush and his Administration are continuing the practice of law that the conservatives used when going after Clinton, namely: limiting the scope so that the law can serve there own purpose. Bush has so narrowed the scope that he believes he is not covered.
In that he cannot seem to see that he is covered by the law, it is up to us to see that he is covered and take him to task. The problem is that we do not seem to be able to raise the ire of the opposition leadership sufficient enough to pursue the cause.

[funnymanpants]

6. She is funny when she says...

"I take great comfort in the idea that the Pope will decide our policy on stem cell research, not to mention abortion and gay marriage. The Vatican is never wrong on scientific questions. Why, in 1992 the Catholic Church actually apologized to Galileo and said he was right after all -- the earth does revolve around the sun, instead of vice versa. And it only took them 400 years to figure it out. Less time than it would take George W. Bush to admit an error. I find that comforting."

[dand]

9. No one knows the little chicken hawk better than Ivins

she always makes my day, thanks for the link.

[Miss Authoritiva]

12. Read my lips: We are a nation of laws.

None of them, however, so cleverly constructed that they cannot be evaded by "the war president."