Episode VI: Return of the Liberal

Not much has happened since I blocked last...not much at all. There have been several "developments" in the last 24 hours which beg the 3rd cent to comment...or at least I beg me to comment.

First, Amnesty International released a report last week detailing prisoner abuses at the Guantanamo Bay military terrorist detention facility. You can read the report here: Guantanamo and beyond: The continuing pursuit of unchecked executive power.

Yesterday, on CNN's Larry King Live, King interviewed Vice President Cheney. This is the exchange between King and Cheney:

KING: Amnesty International condemns the United States. How do you react?

D. CHENEY: I don't take them seriously.

KING: Not at all?

D. CHENEY: No. I -- frankly, I was offended by it. I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world. Think about what we did in World War I, World War II, throughout the Cold War. Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly oppressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people. For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously.

KING: They specifically said, though, it was Guantanamo. They compared it to a gulag.

D. CHENEY: Not true. Guantanamo's been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. Remember who's down there. These are people that were picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan and other places in the global war on terror. These are individuals who have been actively involved as the enemy, if you will, trying to kill Americans. That we need to have a place where we can keep them. In a sense, when you're at war, you keep prisoners of war until the war is over with.

We've also been able to derive significant amounts of intelligence from them that helped us understand better the organization and the adversary we face and helped us gather the kind of information that makes it possible for us to defend the United States against further attacks. And what we're doing down there has, I think, been done perfectly appropriately. I think these people have been well treated, treated humanely and decently.

Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment. But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and been released by to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.

So let me get this straight...the Vice President of the United States was offended...not by prisoner abuse...but by Amnesty International saying there was prisoner abuse. Who the hell does he think he is?

And let me get this other thing straight...Cheney said: "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously." Did the Vice President, who is from Wyoming, forget about the U.S.'s treatment of Native Americans...or blacks...or women...or imigrants...or the Japanese Americans during WWII?

Then today, during a press conference, President Bush had this exchange:

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, recently, Amnesty International said you have established "a new gulag" of prisons around the world, beyond the reach of the law and decency. I'd like your reaction to that, and also your assessment of how it came to this, that that is a view not just held by extremists and anti-Americans, but by groups that have allied themselves with the United States government in the past -- and what the strategic impact is that in many places of the world, the United States these days, under your leadership, is no longer seen as the good guy.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know -- yes, sir.

In my polite opinion, the Bush administration is full of S*@%. "It just is."

Check back tomorrow for the end to government-funded Viagra and Deep Throat...