Chuck Todd Depicts Support For Torture Investigations As Fringe Phenomenon

[babylonsister]

Jason Linkins
Chuck Todd Depicts Support For Torture Investigations As Fringe Phenomenon
04/21/09 04:09 PM
Video at link~


I really have to object with the way Chuck Todd is characterizing the underlying public pressure that's being brought to bear on President Obama and the White House to investigate and potentially prosecute the authors and the agents of the previous administration's torture regime.

The whole thing is knit up in political process tropes and infused with the pointless melodrama of the day, when a serious and substantive look at this issue is called for.

MITCHELL: They clearly are responding to the letter from Diane Feinstein...and the whole question of whether - in the liberal blogosphere whether they have been too quick to shut down any prosecutions.

TODD: There does seem to be a little bit of a reaction to how this was received on the left. And the president, when he went on in those comments, Andrea, to suggest that he'd be open to some sort of special commission that was bipartisan, you know, he said, on one hand said he's worried about the process getting politicized, and frankly this feels like a political food fight now. Vice President Cheney on one side, President Obama on the other. The hard left, the hard right, fighting over this in the blogosphere. When he talks about - he fears the politicization - that may be too late, so the compromise might be, and the president basically comes out and endorses it in that photo op, questioning that he got there, which is a special commission to look into this but it opens up all sorts of doors on when legal opinions matter and all that. That is just -- this is some touchy situation, issues having to do with legal opinions, the constitution, it's a real tightrope. And the political pressure on both sides is intense.

In the first place, Todd and his fellows need to move off of this Dick Cheney versus Barack Obama storyline. The two men are not, as Todd depicts, on opposite "sides." One is the duly elected President of the United States. The other is a retired man who holds no political power and who plays no role in policy making. The two men are not equals, any more than they were a year ago this time when Cheney was Vice President and Obama was the junior Senator from Illinois.

But more to the point, to suggest that public support for torture prosecutions is a struggle the "hard left" or the blogosphere is to miss the point entirely. There is strong, active, mainstream support for prosecutions. Period.



more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/21/chuck-todd-depicts-suppor_n_189647.html

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. That's because he's an overpaid douche bag. nt

[angstlessk]

3. agreed an overpaid douchbag who lives in the bubble called DC

he is a beltway pundit...AKA...AN IGNORAMUS!

[annabanana]

2. Todd deserves to be called out for this crap.

His vigorous attempts to twist the words and the meanings of the debate are getting more and more obvious...

He should know that we notice these things:

Chuck Todd, [e-mail]

[Bluerthanblue]

4. he's going to find out that fringe can be pretty substantial-

[Vincardog]

5. There is strong, active, mainstream support for prosecutions. Period. K & R

[Supersedeas]

6. he and Andrea Mitchell made it clear that the President had succombed to the

liberal blogosphere

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. dem dam libs.

too bad there's a majority of us these days.

[Supersedeas]

13. as if the liberal blogosphere was responsible for passing laws AND that enforcing the law

was such a 'marginal' and extreme thing to do.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

17. what you said, times 10.

[spanone]

7. tuck chodd

[DCKit]

10. Cuckhold?

I dunno. It just sounds right.

[Bozita]

8. It's called "rule of law," Chuck. Google the following: "rule of law" "blow jobs"

Do it, Chuck.

[Terry in Austin]

11. Wrong word: "investigation"

Investigating these criminals -- in the sense of "let's invstigate them and hold a lot of hearings" -- throws it into the political arena, with the inevitable danger of its turning into an unproductive circus.

While it's natural for people to crave some kind of "purge" of the Bush regime, this would open up the Obama administration to all kinds of reaction and resistance from supporters of the "purge victims." The potential for becoming immobilized by it is huge, and it's avoidable.

It's a matter of law. While the Bush regime may be guilty of being odious asshats, that's not in itself illegal. But if they're guilty of torture, well, that IS illegal. The DOJ is there to deal with lawbreakers, and legal machinery takes a while to grind.

I say let 'em do what they're there for, and keep the political leadership -- WH and Congress -- out of it. I also believe that this may well be what Obama has in mind.

[tblue37]

12. Besides, if this is a food fight, Cheney is the only throwing food

at anyone. Obama is just doing his job.

[Cha]

14. chuck todd is a lying mediawhore and

will stick up for anything that helps out the republicons and their base, the corporatemedia.

[felinetta]

15. I do not like Chuck Todd's new role on MSNBC.

He was ok when he was just a bean counter during the campagin,
but once he started talking in his new job, he has turned me
off!  Glad to see others agree!

[Poiuyt]

16. Even if it were just a fringe phenomenon, does that mean prosecutions shouldn't take place?

If the captain of the football team is caught cheating on a test, should he go unpunished because all the cool kids like him?

[Bravo Zulu]

18. When crimes are commited, justice demands an investigation.

Not to do so, shows that you are soft on crime.