Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [21]
MSNBC’S interviews with Dodd and Frank were expressly on financial reforms intended to prevent in the future what Dodd and Frank had caused in the past. Oddly enough, those allegedly being “regulated” were delighted with the Democrats’ financial reform bill. In April 2010, both JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said they supported the Democrats’ financial reform. What better evidence is there that the Democrats were getting tough with Wall Street than the enthusiastic support of Wall Street?
If liberals can call the main culprits of the financial meltdown “reformers,” just imagine what they could do with a word like “torture.” Actually, you don’t have to imagine. I’ll tell you.
Liberals hysterically denounced the CIA’s treatment of terrorist detainees at Guantánamo as “torture,” but were more understanding when Damian Williams smashed a cinder block on Reginald Denny’s head during the L.A. Riots and then did a victory dance around Denny’s body. The attack on Denny broke facial bones in 91 places and resulted in permanent brain damage. 33 A jury acquitted Williams of all charges except simple mayhem for dropping the block on Denny’s head.34
Representative Maxine Waters defended Williams, saying the “anger in my district is a righteous anger” and “I’m just as angry as they are.”35 She even paid a visit to Williams’s house after the attack to see if there was anything she could do for him (taking time out from her busy schedule of attending hearings to get more federal support for banks whose boards her husband served on).
But the CIA considers putting a caterpillar in the cell of Osama bin Laden’s trusted aide, Abu Zubaydah, and liberals demand war crimes trials.
The Justice Department’s top-secret memos on interrogation techniques—released by President Obama in 2009—show that the Bush administration actually rejected the “caterpillar” torture, unless Zubaydah were specifically informed that it was a harmless insect:
As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar.
If you do so, to ensure that you are outside the predicate act requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain.36
Was this a harrowing account of U.S. brutality or the premise for a children’s book? “Zubaydah and the Very Scary Caterpillar.” Get Owen Wilson to do the voices and you’ve got a hit cartoon movie on your hands.
The New York Times didn’t use the words “brutal,” “horror,” or “inhumane” in reference to the beating of Reginald Denny but was quick to attach such descriptions to the treatment of terrorists at Guantánamo.
These headlines referred to the detainees in Guantánamo:
• At Human Rights Film Festival, Horror and Hope37 (“graphic depiction … stomach-turning experiences of abuse and humiliation … devastating indictment … inhumane treatment of prisoners”)
• Taking a Long, Bumpy Ride to Systematic Brutality38
• Justice 5, Brutality 439
These were Times headlines referring to the attack on Reginald Denny:
• Trucker Beaten in Riot Is Hospitalized Again40
• 5th Man Held in Los Angeles in Beating of a Truck Driver41
• 60 Arrested in Disturbance at Site of Los Angeles Riots42
Bob Herbert titled a column about the nationwide riots after the Rodney King verdicts “That Weird Day.”43 A column on Guantánamo was titled “Madness and Shame.”44
Could we run a photo of the cinder block dropping on Reginald Denny’s head next to a photo