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Did the Left Just Become the Moral Standard in America?

Not to pretend that either Left or Right, Republican or Democrat actually holds the morel high ground as an intrinsic quality. Far from it. But we keep hearing over and over again on the news that the pressure to investigate torture is coming from the Left. As if the shit-storm we’re seeing right now could possibly be generated by the relatively small group of independents on the Left.

We know that the media loves to drive the Right-Left Bloodsport story, but the idea that a bunch of cigarette-smoking, absinthe-drinking, goatee-wearing bongo-playing poet intellectuals have driven the story of Americans torturing perceived enemies into the tops of all the headlines is simply absurd. This story is being driven by a genuine outrage across a large section of the American public over – call me over sensitive – genuinely outrageous stuff.

And for fuck’s sake, people, does it not matter to anyone in the MSM that crimes appear to have been committed? Politics be damned. Optics be damned. Crimes committed in a nation of laws need to be prosecuted, even if you think they were justified; justification is a question for opinion makers, immaterial to the proper prosecution of laws.

Even more frustrating about the conversation – and even more of a measure of the psychosis that the War on Terror has thrown a large portion of our nation’s power structure, as reflected by the media that bathes itself in that power – is the idea that, because there’s a war going on, we cannot stop to examine our mistakes. This is simply not the case and there is simply no precedent for that type of heedlessness in our history. Plenty of prosecutions have happened in war time, from the Revolutionary War right up to the present day.

I would like someone in the media to patiently explain to my obviously ignorant ass what, precisely, about the United States of America continuing to prosecute it’s laws would embolden the enemy? What about the United States of American proving that it’s laws can withstand it’s institutions and it’s institutions can withstand it’s laws makes us weak?

We derive our strength from our laws. Crimes appear to have been committed. A proper investigation, even if no prosecutions or convictions proceed from it, is the only strategic move.

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Your Friday Updates

Kirstin gets the nod, California gets the weed, but not everybody’s happy in today’s DFE News Update:

  • Xerox is the breaking news of the day for Rochester, as it’s earnings report gives some indication why it’s laying off workers: they broke even on earnings this quarter, down from 41 cents per share this time last year. Breaking even is good when you’re a kid paying bills, but it’s bad when you’re a multi-billion dollar, publicly-traded international corporation.
  • A happy switch from eight years of one reality, President Barack Obama (fuckin’ LOVE writing that) affirms a woman’s right to choose as both a woman’s right and a family’s right to privacy on the anniversary of the Roe decision. Protesters on the lawn don’t get their traditional phone call from the president anymore. Shucks, I guess they’ll just have to freeze.
  • Kirstie Gets the Nod!!! Yes, our long statewide nightmare is over, with frickin Patterson finally getting off his ass and picking someone. I’ll probably comment on this more later, with perhaps a roundup of reaction.
  • From the “Obvious But Worth Noting” department, experts predict as much as a 9 percent shrinking of the wireless market in the next year. Duh. It’s a recession.
  • I commented yesterday about Obama’s decision to shut down Gitmo, asserting that a test of that decision would not be long coming. It took one day, actually. A freed Saudi has now become a leader in the al-Qaeda military machine. Joy.
  • Finally, happy news from California: pot crops are abundant this year. As I pointed out in a comment on TPMCafe, Obama could do this country a world of good by just legalizing it, already. Ease our suffering in this time of economic, military and environmental troubles.