Well, if shoe-throwing Iraqis did not stop Bush’s magical mystery propaganda tour, the admittance by a high-ranking Bush Administration official that we tortured a key terrorism suspect certainly should, despite Bush’s protestations to the contrary. Truth does have a way of undercutting propaganda, at least eventually. But I guess in this case, since propaganda only works if everyone is on the same set of talking points, the fact that someone on the team disrupted the message sort of short-circuited the propaganda.
And it is not just the official admittance that we tortured. The fallout is that one of the more high profile terrorism cases fell through because we tortured. Bush was supposed to bring terrorists to justice. Now, the alleged wanna be 20th hijacker on 11 Sep., Mohammed al Qahtani, cannot be tried since we tortured him and the evidence is now tainted. Nice going ya’ll.
So much for Bush being able to say he successfully pursued terrorists and brought them to justice. This revelation today essentially destroys the Bush Presidency’s main rationale, their raison d’etre, their claim to fame. It is gone now. They have failed to defeat terrorism and have not been able to bring it to justice.
Yet, my mission is not to point out Bush’s failings, as fun as that is. My mission is to point out how liberals need to improve their messaging. Now, I only have one case to point out here, but it serves to show how far progressives need to go in order to win the war over hearts and minds with conservatives.
Rachel Maddow had Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) on her show tonight to talk about this issue. Unbelievably, he could not bring himself to call what the U.S. did to al Qahtani torture, and focused more on how long the prisoners have been kept at Guantanamo Bay rather than the bombshell that the U.S. cannot bring a key terrorism suspect to trial because we tortured him.
Usually Webb is good on issues like this. Here he pussyfoots around the issue – that the U.S. tortures. Democrats have to go for the kill when the prey has been severely wounded. If Obama wants more political cover to end torture and close Gitmo, Democrats have to create it for him. Today was a perfect opportunity to help create that space by thrashing Bush’s use of torture and inability to get prosecutions as a result. If Bush’s methods at Gitmo have failed to bring justice, it clearly goes to show that the whole military tribunal system and interrogation tactics, and Gitmo itself, have failed and should be scrapped.
Where was a statement like that from Webb? The torture revelation gives progressives the cover they need to really undercut the whole military tribunal and Gitmo system. Yet Webb did not take it. Here is the clip The interview with Webb is at the end.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy