Dastardly Dick Roundup Pt I

The Democrats no doubt hoped that the MSM would judiciously ignore Dick Durbin's comparing American troops to Nazis, but the story's getting too big to ignore.

The Boston Herald shows its competing rag across town how editorials are done with a simple, direct, searing editorial on Dastardly Dick and the Dudgeon of Doom:

The second highest ranking Democrat in the Senate has compared American servicemen and women to Nazis on the floor of that body. Has political debate sunk so low that a comment that hideous can be made by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) without repercussions?

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) lost his leadership position for the lesser if still odious offense of praising Strom Thurmond's presidential campaign which had taken place decades earlier.

``If I read this ... and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others,'' Durbin said of Guantanamo ``abuses'' like ratcheting up the air conditioning in detainees' cells.

When Amnesty International makes such comparisons it irreversibly damages its credibility. When a U.S. senator does so, he damages the institution and the country he serves.

Durbin must go.

Don't expect The Globe to follow suit---they're too busy shredding John Kerry's Form 180 to condemn the Democrats' No. 2 man in the Senate for smearing our troops. Seems they've got a warm place in their hearts for folks who equate American soldiers with murderous dictators of the past like Adolf Hitler or Ghengis Khan, doesn't it?

Michelle Malkin's not too busy to keep an eye on this emerging scandal---she's instituted Durbin Watch on her site, a spot you'll want to keep an eye on yourself in the coming days.

Blackfive will also be a must-read. You'll notice it's been added to the BlogRoll.

Blogfather Hugh Hewitt has always had a jeweler's eye for the breaking big story unlikely to be covered by the MSM. It's no different this time around.

The Ankle-Biting Pundits think Durbin could be censured. I think he'll be forced to resign. This is not the hill the Democrats want to die on, and Hillary's invested way too much time and effort cultivating her Nouveau Hawk image to shrink from throwing Dastardly Dick under the bus.

Cap'n Ed's so pitch-perfect on this issue he deserves quoting at length (although you'll definitely want to follow the link too):

If Senator Durbin wants to get up on the Senate floor and rail against torture, perhaps he could start with these torture houses, where real cruelty took place, not the humiliation tactics at Gitmo that tried to save American lives. What Fathil experienced was the same torture as that given out by Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athists during his decades-long reign, only Fathil had the good fortune to survive his encounter with the Islamofascists outside of Gitmo. Others, as the Times notes, did not fare so well.

The Islamofascist torturers even have their own instruction and philosophy manual to guide them through their depravity. The Principles of Jihadist Philosophy by Abdel Rahman al-Ali gives the so-called insurgents instruction and guidance on how to conduct war and interrogations on behalf of Islam. Durbin might want to see if he can borrow a copy from the Marines in order to educate himself on the differences between our men and women in the armed forces and our enemies, if not the earlier enemies with which Durbin confused our troops. With instructions such as "How to Select the Best Hostage" and "The Legitimacy of Cutting the Infidels' Heads", the difference should be rather clear, even to someone of Durbin's limited intellect.

The Gitmo detainees are the genocidal, sadistic, bloodthirsty freaks, Senator, not their jailers or the interrogators who try to protect the United States by getting them to talk. If you can't recognize that -- and so far, it appears that you lack the ability or the will to do so -- then you have no place in the Senate, especially during a time of war. Time for you to offer your resignation and salvage what's left of your honor.

Although I'm not sure Dastardly Dick, your typical dirty Chicago machine pol, has much in the way of honor. An honorable man would have offered an immediate apology and not the weasel-words Durbin spat out.

I can't resist closing with the money portion of Mark Steyn's column on this issue:

And this is where it's time to question Durbin's patriotism. As Leahy implicitly acknowledges, Guantanamo is about "image" and "perception" -- about how others see America. If this one small camp of a few hundred people has "drained the world's good will," whose fault is that?

The senator from Illinois' comparisons are as tired as they're grotesque. They add nothing useful to the debate. But around the planet, folks naturally figure that, if only 100 people out of nearly 300 million get to be senators, the position must be a big deal. Hence, headlines in the Arab world like "U.S. Senator Stands By Nazi Remark." That's al-Jazeera, where the senator from al-Inois is now a big hero -- for slandering his own country, for confirming the lurid propaganda of his country's enemies. Yes, folks, American soldiers are Nazis and American prison camps are gulags: don't take our word for it, Senator Bigshot says so.

This isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing; it's about senior Democrats who are so over-invested in their hatred of a passing administration that they've signed on to the nuttiest slurs of the lunatic fringe. It would be heartening to think that Durbin will himself now be subjected to some serious torture. Not real torture, of course; I don't mean using Pol Pot techniques and playing the Celine Dion Christmas album really loud to him. But he should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done -- in a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's enemies. Shame on him, and shame on those fellow senators and Democrats who by their refusal to condemn him endorse his slander.

Bye bye, Dick. Can't say it was good to know you.