QandO

In some ways I agree, but to put it in perspective. Is Rush's spin on this, calling it "blowing off steam", nearly as reprehensible as the mainstream media's spin "worse civil rights crime of the century"?

I think not. I do not agree with Rush, however, he spins much much less than the mainstream media does, but gets twice as much flack for it. Go figure.

Posted by: Jim G. at May 6, 2004 08:38 AM

Some context Jon ... decide for yourself:

RUSH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off? These people are the enemy. Our people are being fired at, shot at, these are young people that have volunteered to go over there and they're having bullets fired in their way, bombs and mortar fire aimed at 'em by the people that they are guarding and charged to get information from. Everybody has a breaking point. Now, I'm not suggesting that it's common, normal in disciplined military structures for people to lose control. I'm suggesting that it might be understandable.

You know, if somebody in this country breaks, has some sort of a problem, oh, we have all kinds of compassion for them, we understand the hard rigors and the pressures of life in America, and we make all kinds of allowances for the mistakes that people make. But here we go on the military, nobody is allowed a mistake in the military, nobody is. It's got to be by the book at all times, and if it's not, why, there's a systemic problem. Look, I'm not really playing devil's advocate here. I'm being quite honest with you about this. I'm just totally uncomfortable with the total blow-up of this to something that it is not. It's bad enough as it is, without having to blow it up into something that's going to tie our hands and hamper us in the effort that we're engaging in over there. They had a good time doing it. Okay, then let's, what do we do, what's the additional punishment for having a good time doing this? Life imprisonment, is that good enough for having a good time? Let's get really tough with these people. It's bad enough what they did, but they enjoyed it, let's give them five more years or whatever we're going to do to them, or maybe deny them -- whatever we do, that will make us feel better, right?

It's all about us. It's all about us feeling better about what we're seeing. We're not even there. We don't even know what it's like. 99% of us have no idea what their lives are like. We feel bad because they're enjoying what we see in a picture and we want to really let them have it. This sucks, folks. This really, really is getting out of hand. It's not about us. And this whole self-absorption with us, why, that makes me look bad. It doesn't make you look bad. You didn't do it. No, it makes ugly American -- you're not an ugly American, we're not ugly Americans. Screw all this. Stop making everything about us. Some people did something that was wrong. Fini. It's over. Fix it. Move on.

Posted by: McQ at May 6, 2004 08:55 AM

Fair point on Rush, though I do think it was supposed to be sarcasm that fell well short of what he was going for. Maybe he'll plan a bit better next time.

As for this whole prisoner abuse story in general....it's now been turned into a partisan bully club by the Dems, so I now no longer care about it.

Put the soldiers who did it on trial. As far as anything else, it no longer registers on my radar.

Posted by: shark at May 6, 2004 09:26 AM

Jim: Yeah, I'd say it's worse, because - even with the additional context - Rush is making excuses for their behaviour. Downplaying it. I'd rather we err in the direction of taking this too seriously, rather than not seriously enough.

And yeah, we DO need a bit of self-absorption. This does reflect on us. I appreciate the context, and it makes what he said look marginally better...but not enough.

Besides, can you really imagine Rush excusing Kerry, if Kerry said "we have to understand that they're under pressure, and trying to let off some steam". Uh-uh. I thought Rush always said it was the liberals who tried to explain away the "social reasons people did bad things", instead of placing blame firmly and finally on them. No excuses.

Frankly, I don't think we can take this too seriously. Most importantly, we have GOT to show the Arab world just how seriously we are taking it. We have to convince them.

Posted by: Jon Henke at May 6, 2004 09:33 AM

I don't know if he was downplaying it so much as trying to put it into some sort perspective. For the record, I think that the hazing that goes on in many college and high-school situations is completely out of bounds, thus when Rush compared it to that, I didn't react as though he was trying to pass it off as "harmless fun." I understood him to be saying that, yes, this is bad, and the perps have to be punished, but to use this as justification for saying we're just as bad as Saddam and his goons is totally out of line.

I've seen the photos, and they reminded me more of college frat hazings (which are dumb-ass stunts that should be -- and in many cases are -- illegal) than they did of plastic shredders or burying people under asphalt.

Posted by: Roy Jacobsen at May 6, 2004 10:08 AM

On the other hand, when the Arab world protests the brutality that goes on in their prisons, I'll take their opinion on this topic seriously. Until then they should STFU and pray to Allah that WE don't start asking them for apologies for their actions

Posted by: shark at May 6, 2004 12:07 PM

Unfortunately, what might be Rush's underlying premise -- it was a stupid stunt, and turning it into an Adminstration scandal that forces us out of Iraq or at least ties our hands from doing other things that need doing -- gets lost in what appears to be an appalling lack of compassion and proportion. His accompanying comments about how it's no worse than a Madonna show fails to grasp the distinction between volunteers/paid performers, and doing something under life-and-death coersion.

I agree that it's (perhaps inevitably) metastisized into a partisan club, but Rush has only handed "the other side" a bigger club to use.

Posted by: ***Dave at May 6, 2004 12:45 PM