{"id":28443,"date":"2014-12-14T20:36:10","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T01:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=28443"},"modified":"2014-12-14T20:36:16","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T01:36:16","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-friday-december-12th-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=28443","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Friday, December 12th, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday, December 12th, 2014…but before we begin, Happy Birthday wishes go out to our youngest son Travis:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"giterdone\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Git ‘er dun! \u00a0This\u00a0is one<\/em><\/span> apple that didn’t fall far from the tree! \u00a0Arthur, he’s all<\/em><\/span> yours!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, here’s The Gouge!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, in case you missed it, courtesy of Balls Cotton and his friend Mike, the Cliff Notes version of the news…every single day<\/em><\/span>…<\/em>for the next 769 days<\/em><\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hamas is attacking…<\/span>Israel is defending…Russia is invading…the Middle East is smoldering…Boko Haram is massacring…ISIS is marching…Iran and N Korea are threatening…American cities are crumbling…our southern border is dissolving…our debt is skyrocketing…Americans are hurting…our enemies are laughing…Obama is fundraising<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Either that or he’s playing golf!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next, courtesy of the WSJ<\/em>,\u00a0Peggy Noonan completely misses the mark with a sanctimonious lecture regarding…<\/b><\/p>\n

A Flawed Report\u2019s Important Lesson<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n

Americans regardless of party should agree torture is wrong.<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"alternative-waterboarding-cartoon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

No, Peggy; Americans agree torture is wrong. \u00a0What Americans don’t<\/em><\/span> agree on, and what we vehemently dispute in the strongest terms, is whether this<\/em><\/span>…<\/b><\/p>\n

\"waterboard\"<\/a><\/p>\n

…in fact constitutes torture. \u00a0John McCain’s politically-correct protestations notwithstanding, if it’s suitable as a harmless POW training simulation for our Military’s aircrews and special ops personnel, it’s good enough for Al Queda, particularly when innocent American lives are at stake.<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

And no amount of namby-pamby equivocation in the name of maintaining American virtue in the eyes of the world will convince us otherwise. \u00a0Besides, does the current leadership of the Dimocratic Party really<\/em><\/span> have standing…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"CIA_Waterboarding_Torture_Jihadis_Gitmo\"<\/p>\n

…to cast stones at anyone else?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though in Noonan’s defense, toward the end of her commentary she finally begins to make sense:<\/b><\/p>\n

“…The most stinging critique came from Mr. Kerrey, a Democrat who served eight years on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which issued the report. In his USA Today piece he slammed the report\u2019s partisanship: \u201cI do not need to read the report to know that the Democratic staff alone wrote it.\u201d The Republicans refused to take part \u201cwhen they determined that their counterparts started out with the premise that the CIA was guilty and then worked to prove it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>The purpose of the committee is \u201cto stand above the fray and render balanced judgments,\u201d but \u201cthis committee departed from that high road<\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As for not interviewing all individuals involved, the committee staff\u2019s rationale\u2014\u201cthat some officers were under investigation and could not be made available\u2014is not persuasive.\u201d Most officers were not under investigation, and those who were saw the process end in 2012.<\/p>\n

Worse, wrote Mr. Kerrey, is the \u201cdisturbing fact\u201d that the report \u201ccontains no recommendations<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span> This is perhaps the most significant missed opportunity, because no one would claim the program was perfect or without its problems.\u201d At the same time, he said, no one with real experience would claim it was completely ineffective. \u201cOur intelligence personnel\u2014who are once again on the front lines fighting the Islamic State\u2014need recommended guidance from their board of governors: The U.S. Congress.\u201d<\/strong><\/span>…”<\/p>\n

Noonan concludes by noting:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“…the report was issued just as a defeated Democratic majority walked out the door, and has the look of a last, lobbed stink bomb<\/strong><\/span>: \u201cSee what the terrible Bush administration did? Bye now!\u201d There is about the entire enterprise a sense of sin being expiated at someone else\u2019s expense. The committee\u2019s job is to oversee the CIA. If its own report is true, it didn\u2019t do a very good job<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>“<\/p>\n

In a related item,\u00a0Commentary Magazine<\/em>‘s Jonathan Tobin suggests Feinstein’s parting shot may well come back to haunt Hillary in 2016:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Torture Focus Is Poison Pill for Democrats<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bg120914dAPC20141209084524\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Liberal Democrats and their media allies are having a field day. The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s report on the CIA\u2019s use of torture has allowed the political left to go back to its favorite pastime: bashing the Bush administration and their pet demon Vice President Dick Cheney. But as good as this feels to them, Democrats should be worried about the possibility that this issue will not only carry over into the new year but become part of the left\u2019s standard foreign-policy talking points as we head into the 2016 presidential election cycle. Though anything that allows them to relive their glory days when hatred for all things Bush was their excuse for a political platform seems enticing, it\u2019s actually a trap. The more the torture issue is allowed to play out as a partisan fight, the more trouble it will be for Democrats in the long run<\/span><\/strong><\/span>…”<\/p>\n

As Mark Levin observed in our Quote of the Day at the top of the page,\u00a0\u201cRepublicans need to run on law and order<\/span>, national security<\/span> and securing the border<\/span><\/em>.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s the juice: first and foremost, this is the basest form of political grandstanding imaginable. \u00a0Feinstein and her band of Liberal turncoats are literally undermining national security in pursuit of political profit. \u00a0It’s not like Feinstein’s bothered to investigate the legality of, or the intelligence underlying, her President’s drone strikes. \u00a0And one thing you can say for Bush and Cheney: no innocent civilians, not to mention children<\/em><\/span>, were ever collateral damage associated with a session on “the device”, as our SERE instructors so fondly referred to the waterboard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second, as Louis Freeh writes in his recent WSJ editorial<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“…the RDI program was not some rogue operation unilaterally launched by a Langley cabal\u2014which is the impression that the Senate Intelligence Committee report tries to convey. Rather, the program was an initiative approved by the president, the national security adviser and the U.S. attorney general, backed by a legal opinion from the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel, which functions as the president\u2019s outside counsel in such matters. President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their closest advisers at the time have confirmed that they were unified behind the RDI program; they should have been interviewed by the Democratic majority in preparing the report on the CIA interrogations.<\/p>\n

The RDI program, including the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, was fully briefed to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees<\/em><\/span>. The Senate committee\u2019s new report does not present any evidence that would support the notion that the CIA program was carried out for years without the concurrence of the House or Senate intelligence committees, or that any of the members were shocked to learn of the program after the fact.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Facts matter, including the fact that the Senate committee\u2019s Democratic majority failed to interview the three CIA directors and three deputy directors, or any other CIA employee for that matter, who had briefed them about the program and carried it out<\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And who, inquiring minds want to know, was on the Senate intelligence committee at the time of said briefings?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"dianne_feinstein\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oooh…never mind!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lastly, Feinstein’s an unabashed, hypocritical Washington hack, willing to sell her mother down the river if it buys her some political advantage, no matter how brief. \u00a0Exhibit “A”: she rails against gun ownership while holding a concealed-carry permit for her personal protection she’d make unavailable to ordinary Americans.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Noonan, however, reminds us of Robert Redford’s character in Sydney Pollack’s classic Three Days of the Condor<\/em>. \u00a0If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth watching; but not<\/em><\/span> for the message Pollack sought to convey. \u00a0Rather it’s notable for the realism contained in the final scene. \u00a0Redford’s character is a hopelessly naive, educated idiot who’s just seen his entire CIA station slaughtered because he unwittingly uncovered a unauthorized, clandestine op to take over the Middle East oil fields. \u00a0He’s confronted his superior, Cliff Robertson, about what’s unfolded; watch it through the 3:20 mark:<\/strong><\/p>\n