In a Rush to regain the moral high ground

by: Juan Melli

Tue Mar 11, 2008 at 07:17:01 PM EDT

The House will vote today to try to override Bush's pro-torture veto, though it's unlikely they'll have the 2/3 votes needed (Update: the override failed 225-188, short of 2/3. Reps LoBiondo, Ferguson, Frelinghuysen, Garrett and Saxton voted for torture while Chris Smith joined NJ's Democrats in voting to override the veto). Congressman Rush Holt spoke on the issue:

"Let's be clear: American personnel - civilian or military - should never engage in interrogation practices that amount to torture. The provision the President objects to would simply put the entire U.S. government under one standard for interrogating detainees: the Army Field Manual. The heads of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the FBI have testified that the non-torture guidelines in this bill are adequate for their people to follow in interrogation of dangerous people.
"If the President were serious about restoring our reputation in the world and about providing moral and legal clarity for all government employees involved in the handling or interrogating detainees, he would never have vetoed this bill. Providing that moral and legal clarity is our Constitutional obligation, and to that end I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to override the President's veto.

Update 2: 5th district Congressional candidate Dennis Shulman:

"We need members of Congress who take issues of morality seriously. Instead of a reliable vote for torture like Scott Garrett, we need representatives who recognize that torture inherently generates unreliable information while reducing our standing in the world. Our great strength as a nation is that, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while the arc of our history is long, it bends toward justice.
In the end, we will renounce the turn away from justice that torture represents."

Juan Melli :: In a Rush to regain the moral high ground

Tags: George W Bush, torture, Rush Holt, (All Tags)

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In a Rush to regain the moral high ground | 1 comments

And in Further News of Shame for NW Jersey: (4.00 / 1)

Ernie "Da' Wrench" Garrett, the strutting martinet himself, votes in favor of putting more shame on our nation and placing our soldiers in danger of similar treatment if captured by some present or future enemy.

The prayer I presented in my comments on the Family Leave bill applies to the 5th as well. Because sometimes, to us out here in the western part of the state, prayer seems to be all we have.

And oh, to the rumored(as far as we are concerned out here...) Dem candidates in the 5th: People get it out here now. The love affair with all things Republican, especially on the national level, is over, except for a few loud crazies. A little economic populism and realism in your message out here will go far. That said, you have to get that message out here. Might want to mention creating some jobs as well. We have the highest number of per capita welfare recipients of any county in the state. People are really hurting.

But you have to deliver the messages, not expect them to make it out here through the good offices of The Force.

The nom de plume has a long and distinguished history.

by: Tandalayo Scheisskopf @ Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 01:49:59 AM UTC