Bush Wipes Hand on Clinton

MITHRIDATES
Funny. You would think a good Republican would want to wipe his hand on a Haitian after touching the man whose lending policies caused the financial crisis and whose failure to pursue Al Qaeda led to 9/11, not the other way around.

Extreme Anguish of Body or Mind

MITHRIDATES
President Obama released four memos regarding alleged "torture" during the Bush administration. Cue outrage from all corners:

• The New York Times editorial page condemns the memos for being "written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country's most basic values." They contend that "as far as Mr. Bush’s lawyers were concerned, it was not really torture unless it involved breaking bones, burning flesh or pulling teeth." They may be right in this regard. This type of thinking falls way short of the American ideal. But the Times's sin is in omission. The regimes we've been fighting might not even consider those acts "really torture." "They torture, we torture, we're no different" has been a rallying cry of the raving left. It's worth pointing out that it's nonsense.

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• "The Memos Prove We Didn't Torture" victoriously screams the Wall Street Journal headline of a David Rivkin and Lee Casey opinion piece. Thank you, WSJ, for saying what the Times wouldn't. Thank you even more for going into even more detail of decidedly un-American activities supported by the Bush Administration. The authors justify these techniques by noting that they've all been tested on US servicemen. They almost have a point. It seems clear — at least from what we know — that the CIA did not engage in any activity that inflicted serious pain. This is not the "torture" of Saddam Hussein's Abu Ghraib. But discovering a captive's worst fear and making him think it's about to be realized is something straight out of 1984. To claim these memos are an acquittal means you haven't read your Orwell.


• Former head of the CIA Michael Hayden condemns the release of the memos on the ground that it has made us less safe, without making any convincing argument as to why this is true.


• Meanwhile, the frothing Left is outraged that Obama won't prosecute CIA agents.


• Some say Obama is obliged to prosecute under the UN Convention against Torture. But we'd have to have a working definition of torture, now, wouldn't we? The CIA techniques may have been un-American and long-term harmful to our cause (we have to take the interrogators' word for it that they conferred tangible short-term gains), but is it really "torture" comparable to what the UN convention was designed to combat? Either way, the Bush Administration's actions and these type of responses will no doubt take the pressure off those engaged in "torture" of a far worse variety.


• At least one Feigned Outrage author thinks this a victory for transparency in government. Let the critics rant all they want, but find me another country where an organization like the ACLU openly sues for the release of top secret documents and the President agrees to release them. We're back on track to leading the way in democratic government. Keep this up and those who admired us before Bush will start to admire us again. And we'll be safer for it. So a shout-out to Obama for enraging the Right (and his own CIA director) by shedding some light on our past sins. Another shout-out for stating emphatically that the US will not engage in such activities any more. And a final shout-out for enraging the Left by refusing to undermine the CIA completely by prosecuting agents walking a fine line between defending their country and obeying the laws of human decency.

Migracorridos

MITHRIDATES
Finally some creative thinking about illegal immigration. Take "migra", the derogatory term used by illegal immigrants for the US Border Patrol, and "corrido", traditional Mexican ballads, and what do you get:

Migracorridos, a five-song CD distributed by the USBP to Mexican radio stations containing such hits as "El Enemigo Mas Grande", a ballad about a Mexican watching his cousin die in the desert. The CD also includes "La Carta" (The Letter), "La Tumba" (The Tomb), and "El Funeral" (you're on your own with this one).
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The good news is it actually represents some creative thinking by our border control. Mexican drug traffickers are known to sing narcocorridos to brag about their exploits and the USBP now has a competing offer. And they're apparently quite popular. Read the rest of the Daily News article (hooray, they produced something worth reading! Oh wait, that's just an AP reprint) for more about the Border Crossing Initiative. The BCI claims success, as deaths are down from a peak of 492 in 2005 to 390 in 2008, but it's unclear how much of this is from fewer border crossing attempts due to fewer opportunities en el norte during the recession.

The sad news is that an effort like this is only noteworthy in the absence of any reasonable immigration policy. Eight years ago a governor from a border state ran for President with a sensible position based on years of first-hand experience with immigration. Too bad he never got the chance to make it happen. From 2005 and 2007, John McCain*, Ted Kennedy, and others led an effort for a comprehensive immigration reform that sought to address the major issues in a reasonable way by largely ignoring the rantings from the right and left extremes. The resulting rants of these extremes against the bill suggest it had some merit.

It was not perfect. It was not how I would have drawn it up. But considering the usual crap that comes out of Congress it wasn't that bad. It had the support of the last President. Would it have the support of this one? I think so. Can it get through the new Congress? It came close last time and seems worth a try now. But will ecomonic troubles and a temporary decline in illegal immigration remove it from the agenda entirely?

This seems like something the current Congress and President could get done in a reasonable way. So what gives? We'll tackle this issues in depth at a later date, but for now, can't we at least get it back on the table?

* note: when this author refers to "John McCain", he is not referring to the alien-demon-possessed 2008 presidential candidate who ran under the same name and said he would actually vote against the immigration bill the real John McCain sponsored back in 2006.