Olbermann: “The President of the United States owes this country an apology”
By: Jamie Holly on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 6:25 PM - PDT
Keith Olbermann delivered another stunning special comment tonight, this time attacking Bush’s Rose Garden press conference from last Friday.
Olbermann: Finally tonight, a Special Comment about the Rose Garden news conference last Friday. The President of the United States owes this country an apology.There are now none around him who would tell him - or could. The last of them, it appears, was the very man whose letter provoked the President into the conduct, for which the apology is essential. An apology is this President’s only hope of regaining the slightest measure of confidence, of what has been, for nearly two years, a clear majority of his people.
Rough transcript below the fold.
Finally tonight, a Special Comment about the Rose Garden news conference last Friday.
The President of the United States owes this country an apology. It will not be offered, of course. He does not realize its necessity.
There are now none around him who would tell him - or could. The last of them, it appears, was the very man whose letter provoked the President into the conduct, for which the apology is essential. An apology is this President’s only hope of regaining the slightest measure of confidence, of what has been, for nearly two years, a clear majority of his people.
Not "confidence" in his policies nor in his designs nor even in something as narrowly focused as which vision of torture shall prevail — his, or that of the man who has sent him into apoplexy, Colin Powell. In a larger sense, the President needs to regain our confidence, that he has some basic understanding of what this country represents — of what it must maintain if we are to defeat not only terrorists, but if we are also to defeat what is ever more increasingly apparent, as an attempt to re-define the way we live here, and what we mean, when we say the word "freedom."
Because it is evident now that, if not its architect, this President intends to be the contractor, for this narrowing of the definition of freedom. The President revealed this last Friday, as he fairly spat through his teeth, words of unrestrained fury…
…directed at the man who was once the very symbol of his administration, who was once an ambassador from this administration to its critics, as he had once been an ambassador from the military to its critics. The former Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, had written, simply and candidly and without anger, that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."
This President’s response included not merely what is apparently the Presidential equivalent of threatening to hold one’s breath, but — within — it contained one particularly chilling phrase. Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don’t you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you’re following a flawed strategy? BUSH: If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. It’s just — I simply can’t accept that. It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.
Of course** it’s acceptable to think that there’s "any kind of comparison." And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary. Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists. Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.
What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right — we have the duty — to think about the comparison. And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think — and say — what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.
All of us agree about that.
Except, it seems, this President.
With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right. That Colin Powell cannot be right.And then there was that one, most awful phrase.
In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vfocused as which vision of torture shall prevail — his, or that of the man who has sent him into apoplexy, Colin Powell. In a larger sense, the President needs to regain our confidence, that he has some basic understanding of what this country represents — of what it must maintain if we are to defeat not only terrorists, but if we are also to defeat what is ever more increasingly apparent, as an attempt to re-define the way we live here, and what we mean, when we say the word "freedom."
Because it is evident now that, if not its architect, this President intends to be the contractor, for this narrowing of the definition of freedom. The President revealed this last Friday, as he fairly spat through his teeth, words of unrestrained fury…
…directed at the man who was once the very symbol of his administration, who was once an ambassador from this administration to its critics, as he had once been an ambassador from the military to its critics. The former Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, had written, simply and candidly and without anger, that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."
This President’s response included not merely what is apparently the Presidential equivalent of threatening to hold one’s breath, but — within — it contained one particularly chilling phrase. Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don’t you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you’re following a flawed strategy? BUSH: If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. It’s just — I simply can’t accept that. It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.
Of course** it’s acceptable to think that there’s "any kind of comparison." And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary. Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists. Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.
What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right — we have the duty — to think about the comparison. And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think — and say — what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.
All of us agree about that.
Except, it seems, this President.
With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right. That Colin Powell cannot be right.And then there was that one, most awful phrase.
In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.
"It’s unacceptable to think…" he said. It is never unacceptable… to think.
And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context… he takes us toward a new and fearful path — one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.
That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think. hus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.
It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever… he, alone, has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights. This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President.
If Mr. Powell’s letter - cautionary, concerned, predominantly supportive — can induce from you such wrath and such intolerance — what would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter, or written to you by a colleague?
"Governments are ins uted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to ins ute new government…"
Those incendiary thoughts came, of course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush. They were the words of Thomas Jefferson.
He put them in the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that annti-thetical to the status quo just now? Would you call it "unacceptable" for Jefferson to think such things, or to write them?
Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued - a chilling su ion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone… who disagrees.
Or what will next be done to them. On this newscast last Friday night, Cons iutional law Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, suggested that at some point in the near future…some of the "detainees" transferred from secret CIA cells to Guantanamo, will finally get to tell the Red Cross that they have indeed been tortured.
Thus the debate over the Geneva Conventions, might not be about further interrogations of detainees, but about those already conducted, and the possible liability of the administration, for them. That, certainly, could explain Mr. Bush’s fury.
That, at this point, is speculative. But at least it provides an alternative possibility as to why the President’s words were at such variance from the entire history of this country. For, there needs to be some other explanation, Mr. Bush, than that you truly believe we should live in a United States of America in which a thought is unacceptable.
There needs to be a delegation of responsible leaders — Republicans or otherwise — who can sit you down as Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott once sat Richard Nixon down - and explain the **reality** of the situation you have created.
There needs to be… an apology from the President of the United States.
And more than one.
But, Mr. Bush, the others — for warnings unheeded five years ago, for war unjustified four years ago, for battle unprepared three years ago — they are not weighted with the urgency and necessity of this one. We must know that, to you…thought with which you disagree — and even voice with which you disagree - and even action with which you disagree — are still sacrosanct to you.
The philosopher Voltaire once insisted to another author, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." Since the nation’s birth, Mr. Bush, we have misquoted and even embellished that statement, but we have served ourselves well, by subscribing to its essence.
Oddly, there are other words of Voltaire’s that are more pertinent still, just now. "Think for yourselves," he wrote, "and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too." Apologize, sir, for even hinting at an America where a few have that privilege to think — and the rest of us get yelled at by the President.
Anything else, Mr. Bush, is truly… unacceptable.
=================================================
Good for Keith, keep up the good work.
I must have missed Colin Powell's getting thrown in prison for disagreeing with the President.
Oh wait, he didn't? That was just rhetoric from the President? He isn't actually banning any speech? So Olbermann really went so far overboard that the ship has disappeared over the horizon, doesn't have any real point, and is just acting as a blustering demagogue, a right-wing Sean Hannity?
^^ we may be closer than you think to dissenters being imprisoned in this country. Democrats are regularly branded anti-American or with the terrorists and with the unitary exective powers this regime has been claiming, we are not far from imprisoning the political oppostion because they are '"terrorist sympathizers".
These guys make Nixon look like a lovable imp.
For the last ing six years we've been hearing how martial law and the yanking away of all our freedoms and liberties are just around the next corner. Well, , Bush had better or get off the pot.
The Patriot Act was supposed to have done this and yet it's been around for five years and, whaddayaknow, I haven't lost a single solitary personal freedom. Not one.
And, as far as being regularly branded anti-American or terrorist sympathizer, that's true but, I don't hear anyone proposing you be imprisoned for having such whacked out, counter productive views. You're just ridiculed.
^^ that comes first Himmler.
If name-calling meant political imprisonment were imminent, we would have been a police state since 1789.
Stop paying so much heed to the moonbats.
Godwin's Law. You lose.
That's the problem with incrementalism. No one listens to a frog who complains that the water feels two degrees warmer.
You listen to frogs?
I know the analogy. But, really, exactly what liberties or freedoms have you lost under the Bush administration that would lead me to believe a frog is being boiled here?
Truly the only attempted infringement on any rights I've witnessed were when the Congressional Democrats threated to sic the FCC on ABC if they persisted in showing the "Path to 9/11" movie -- if they took over in November.
C'mon, list one thing you no longer have the cons utional right to do that you had before Bush took office. Just one.
Much like the Dems accuse the Right of using terrorism as a scare tactic, they use the "stripping of our liberties" as theirs.
The water in my boiling pot is still ice cold.
For myself? None.
Of course if I were a muslim, I'd worry about being falsely accused of being a terrorist, arrested and held without charges, subjected to torture...er, "alternative methods of interrogation", and possibly convicted based on secret evidence I and my attorney can't view or challenge.
...but I'm not a muslim so it's all good. Nothin' to worry about. Water is just fine.
And, he's demonstrated this lack of care for basic cons utional law how? Example please.
Of course, you personally know Muslims that have lost basic cons utional rights, freedoms, or liberties?
Example please. And, worrying about losing something ain't the same as actually losing it.
Well gee golly whiz, Yoni...I don't personally know any of the detainees at Gitmo. I guess If I don't have a direct personal relationship with someone who's rights are violated then they don't actually exist.
This might be a new one to add to the fallacy list.
Well, then certainly you can point to a case where a Muslim has been denied cons utional rights or where, in this administration's policy, the cons utional rights of a Muslim are different than those of other people.
Right?
I don't think this administration singles out all muslims as a whole, but as for an example of a muslim being denied cons utional rights...
Yaser Esam Hamdi
...and who know? He probably is a terrorist. But my frog water will feel a lot cooler once it's proven in a court of law.
the president don't need to apologize for it's not his fault a moron was elected into office.
And which cons utional right was Hamdi denied?
Hamdi was denied legal representation and held without charges, which is a violation of...
There was a big Supreme Court case specifically adressing this. Even Scalia didn't buy the administration's bull .Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Last edited by PixelPusher; 09-20-2006 at 12:19 AM.
So you mean there is a system of checks and balances in our form of government? Interesting.
So did Bush abide by the decision, ignore it, or dissolve the Supreme Court?
Eh, good read. He went a little too far with his "4 little words" shpeel, but all in all good, imo.
I just cant remember any president who looked so offended and almost angry that there are people in his own country who disagree with him....amazing really because I cant get everyone I know to agree with me and I am not the single most powerful man in the world with more TV airtime than most reality shows.
I don't believe Hamdi is a valid case on which to rest your premise the President is disregarding cons utional rights.
Hamdi was captured on the field of battle in Afghanistan, a foreign country. It is my understanding that no other person, in the history of the country, that has been so incarcerated has ever been afforded fourth amendment protections or rights.
It was perfectly reasonable for the Commander in Chief to attempt to get this s bag designated as an enemy combatant and to treat him as such.
But, that your argument rests on such a cir stance is reassuring to me. After all, I know of no case where an American citizen has had any rights or protections negated and, as Extra Stout pointed out in this case, the matter was settled in court -- as it is supposed to be.
Therefore, even though he didn't deserve it, Hamdi was afforded his fourth amendment protections and rights.
Next?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
