The Newest Village Gasbag

by digby

I feel so much more informed having watched the Stephanopoulos round table with Liz Cheney, who was referred to as a "Republican Strategist." (I guess "Bipolar Strategist" Glenn Beck wasn't available.) Luckily, we had "Democratic Strategists" George Will, Gwen Ifill, Sam Donaldson and EJ Dionne on there to balance out the discussion. Not that it was necessary since she is such a reasonable, dispassionate member of the political scene, especially when it comes to the issue of torture. Let's just say she had a few things to say. At a very high decibel level.

The only one who felt comfortable arguing with her on a subject with which she was so obviously personally invested, being as she's the spawn of Torquemada and all, was Sam Donaldson who valiantly tried, but sadly, didn't have the facts at hand. The others simply grinned like jack-o-lanterns (except "village strategist" George Will who helpfully supplied some misleading facts from an anonymously sourced, self-serving article in the Washington Post. See: Greenwald)

She also argued against health care, although it was hard to understand since she apparently believes that the Democrats' proposals included torture, which she oddly seemed to be arguing was a bad thing.

Meanwhile, on John King, Orrin Hatch reiterated that the CIA is going to be too timid or too angry to stop a terrorist attack if any of them are held accountable for their actions. And once again, I have to say how much this worries me. If this is the character of the people we have working in the CIA then they all need to be fired immediately and we need to find some patriots who won't sell out their own countrymen out of fear or pique. It's a tough job and criminals, wimps and traitors don't qualify.

All in all, I learned a lot this morning --- mostly that I will never get those two hours of my life back.


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