Posted on 06/22/2005 9:38:54 AM PDT by ambrose
WASHINGTON -- His voice choking, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois took to the Senate floor Tuesday and explicitly offered "heartfelt apologies" for comparing America's treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to the atrocities of the Nazis, Soviets and other murderous regimes.
The apology came after a week of drumbeat criticism against Durbin, the assistant Democratic leader, from the White House, from Republican senators, from conservative activists and, finally, from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a fellow Democrat.
-snip-
Earlier in the day, however, Daley came down hard on his friend.
"I think it is a disgrace," the mayor declared when asked about Durbin's comments last week. "He is a good friend of mine, but I think it is a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military acts like that."
Daley's son, Patrick, recently enlisted in the U.S. Army and now is in training.
"I believe our men and women in the military have a lot of common sense and passion and heart," the mayor said.
`So disrespectful'
"Read the history of the Holocaust," Daley said. "Nothing can compare with the Holocaust. . . . It is so disrespectful for all the victims of the Holocaust. You are talking about 6 million people intentionally killed. . . .
"How many did [Stalin] kill?" Daley asked rhetorically. "Twenty-two million. Then you take what took place in Cambodia, and we are trying to [compare] incidents in Guantanamo Bay, where nobody has been killed, no one has been seriously injured, to that?"
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Daley's no fool. He'd been told there was a petition
going around to recall Durbin, who's still considered
a hotshot among Chicago politicos. Daley wanted to
shut down that petition and let Durbin know who's
the REAL boss back home! Durbin was sent to D.C.
by the Chicago Boys. They're not going to let him
get too big for his britches and forget his backing.
Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee are camps of the
old school in which the boys in the backroom with
their cigars pull all the strings. It was that way
in their fathers' day...and it's STILL that way in
the big city crime spas. The only real difference
today is they let the little housewife think SHE'S
steering the voting machine from her home and on her
block. It's the new form of mind control in the
burbs and innercity.
Very apt quote by Rawcats. I note that Little Dick Durbin ended his "apology" by comparing himself to Lincoln.
Durbin's remarks display either a gross lack of knowledge, or a deliberate partisan effort to smear America's Commander-in-Chief, or, at the very least a gross lack of understanding of how America's enemies use and misuse remarks such as his in their war on America and its liberty.
This is a war of ideas--the ideas of liberty vs. the ideas of oppression and tyranny--,and to hand the enemies of liberty a weapon for headlines in the Middle East, either deliberately or through ignorance, must not be tolerated on the floor of our Congress. He can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. It's there for all time for the enemies to use!!
No apology here, and no "misunderstanding" either!
What Durbin and all the other Democratic Partisans are doing during this critical time of war against extremist terrorists is consistent with President George Washington's Farewell admonition regarding what he identified as the danger of the "spirit of Party."
This is a small excerpt from that dire warning:
". . .the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions."
Historically knowledgeable "wise people" have complained about Durbin's partisan-motivated public statements, which are either uninformed or deliberately intended to damage his country's President's effort to contain and wage a dangerous war against tyranny.
And, he claims they "misunderstood" him, or now that they were merely "offended"????
If the accusatory and inflammatory remarks of Dean, Durbin, Kennedy, Biden, and other partisans are allowed to stand, unchallenged by a "wise people," then we must conclude that the decades-long failure to teach and learn the Founders' principles, and the means by which they can be subverted, has succeeded!
Booted out of DU for telling a truth, no doubt.
Whether an apology or not, we all know that he still believes what he said in his heart. The so called "apology" was strictly political pressure.
"Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged." --Abraham Lincoln
Thanks for the great quote! Of course the MSM will pick it up and there will no longer be enough 'rats left to filibuster Bolton!
Apology NOT accepted, Dick!!
You did NOT apologize to the soldiers at GITMO !!
Durbin apologized in full, and I have some ocean front property in Montana to sell.
Not exactly. If I cannot find a transcript soon, I will create one myself from the audio, to prove the point.
This guy has refined the non-apology (a la Clinton) into a fine art.
He avoided entirely the responsibility of doing the enemy's propaganda for them, and the resulting damage, or even acknowledged that what he did was at best wrong, at worst horribly uninformed.
For me he just reinforced once more the certain knowlege that it was all politically motivated, and damn the consequences.
Allow me to rephrase that:
RESIGNATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF APOLOGY.
Even that hateful and vilified Richard Nixon had the class and grace to know that.
What about apologizing for his RACIST comments comparing RAP MUSIC to TORTURE?
Where is the African-American community on this? Imagine the outrage if one of those "evil-Republican's" compared an important aspect of black culture to torture.
He did not apologize, I can not believe the headlines say that he apologized. More and more liberal bias in the media for us...
But stupid as dirt.
apologia
noun
A statement that justifies or defends something, such as a past action or policy: apologetic, apology, defense, justification, vindication. See attack/defend.
Goes to show...just how powerful Daley is. Once he spoke up, Durbin caved..in his own way.
Now that will undo all of the political damage done world wide and probably unkill a few troops that died because of this a$$hole.
He apologized if he "offended" anyone. He didn't apologize for his statements. MSM circling the wagons....again.
Oh Durbin is sorry all right. He's one of the sorriest examples of slimy weasels in public life today. His so-called "apology" redefines insincerity at a lower level than I would have thought possible.
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