Christopher Buckley has had it with the sanctimonious reaction over release of the “torture” memos: “These techniques, we learn, included ‘Sleep deprivation,’ ‘Nudity,’ ‘Dietary Manipulation,’ ‘Abdominal Slap,’ ‘Attention Grasp,’ ‘Waterboarding,’ ‘Water Dousing,” ‘Confinement With Insects,’ and ‘Walling.’ This last one is when the interrogator ‘quickly and firmly pushes the individual into the wall…The head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel … to help prevent whiplash.’ I think I remember that one, from boarding school—only the senior boys left out the rolled hoods and towels.”
Larry Summers rails against credit card marketing and says we have to save more. Then the whole stimulus thing is a counterproductive boondoggle. Does he really want Americans to squirrel away their Making Work Pay credit, or does he want them to go spend it? Until now we’ve been led to believe that consumer spending is essential to the Obama demand-creating recovery scheme.
So long as this keeps up Michael Steele’s job is probably safe: “The DNC’s first quarter take: $11,857,000, plus $2 million transferred to the group from Organizing for America. That’s well behind the RNC’s $25.3 million in total first quarter receipts (which includes a large transfer from the McCain-Palin victory committee in January.)”
Sen. John Ensign calls the president’s grip-and-grin with Hugo Chavez “irresponsible.” The president can’t imagine how this would be a bad thing for the U.S. He really doesn’t understand the propaganda value to Chavez both internally and in the hemisphere?
This has it right: “If President Barack Obama’s goal at the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend was to be better liked by the region’s dictators and left-wing populists than his predecessor George W. Bush, the White House can chalk up a win.” For reasons not yet clear, the president seems unwilling to use his popularity to advance human rights, put dictators back on their heels, or provide encouragement to regional advocates of democracy.
Congressional hypocrisy is on display once again, this time with regard to the DC school voucher plan: “The measure was defeated by the Senate 58 to 39; it would have passed if senators who exercised school choice for their own children had voted in favor. Alas, the [Heritage Foundation] survey doesn’t name names, save for singling out Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), architect of the language that threatens the program, for sending his children to private school and attending private school himself. ”
Susan Rice is either lying or uniformed when she says the UN resolution on North Korea is “legally binding”: “Last week’s statement on North Korea is binding only in the sense that it calls on member states ‘to comply fully’ with their obligations under Resolution 1718, which bans sales of weapons, weapons parts and luxury goods to North Korea. Resolution 1718 is legally binding, but it has never been enforced.” Feel safer yet?
Jackson Diehl’s must-read: what happens when Obama can’t charm rogue states or blame Bush anymore? (One keeps hoping that Obama doesn’t really think that handshakes, bows, and dissing his predecessor are going to get him anywhere, but so far there’s no “Plan B” on the horizon.)
David Axelrod says Cuban-American relations are looking up. Well, Cuba is pleased with what they have gotten, but what did we get? I suppose “improved relations” means the dictatorial regime is happy.
Mary Matalin isn’t buying Richard Armitage’s line that had he known about the enhanced interrogation techniques he would have resigned. (By the way, Colin Powell has been awful quiet — what does he think of all this? ) She throws in for good measure: “We know he has no courage . . .This is the man who leaked Valerie Plame’s name, knew he leaked it, let the president spin and the administration spin in the wind for two years. Many of his colleagues spent hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, a valued colleague of his, his life is ruined, Scooter Libby, and he was the one who did it and let nobody know the whole time.”
