Primetime Torture to Gitmo: The Deadly Connection

Human Rights First has produced a 14-minute movie featuring interrogation experts and trainers who all support the argument that Hollywood via shows such as "24", "Alias" and "Lost" have been bombarding the American public with a vicious, poisonous lie.

The idea the Torture is EVER "Heroic" or effective.



Psst It's NOT!

There's a debate and an argument going on in this country concerning the issue of Torture and War Crimes. On the one had you have those who believe the U.S. has an absolute obligation to honor it's own laws and treaties and abide by the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention against Torture.

Geneva states "There Will be NO AFFRONTS TO PERSONAL DIGNITY" against detainees.

The UN Torture Conventions says:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Neither of these documents leave any wiggle room - there are no "Special Circumstances" - No Exceptions. No MEANS NO! Period.

On the other hand you have people who posted these comments to another HRF video on "24" which call it nothing more than an "Ad for Torture"

-torture and interrogation is ok for terrorists and bad people, to do whatever it takes to make them talk, we dont see you human rights assholes when innocent people die, you only come forward to protect the rights of the worst kinda murderers

-What a bunch of fucking pussies. You're safe because of torture. Never forget that.

-right so.. terrorists are allowed to kill innocent people but we're not allowed to try and stop these attacks from even taking place?

These people sound a lot like George W. Bush.

Bush: I just can't imagine being President without having these techniques when we capture a known killer who has information about the next attack on America

Don't worry - you won't be. Thank God.

Or maybe they sound more like Jack Bauer.

Season 7 Episode 1

BAUER: When I am activated, when I am brought into a situation, there is a reason and that reason is to complete the objectives of my mission at all costs. [...]

For a combat soldier the difference between success and failure is your ability to adapt to your enemy. The people that I deal with, they don’t care about your rules. ... In answer to your question, am I above the law? No, sir. I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. I will let them decide what price I should pay. Now please do not sit there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions that I have made because, sir, the truth is I don’t.

Yeah, that's a great argument for Jury Nullification there O.J.


Episode 6 (When Jack argues for the kidnapping and threatening of an innocent woman and child to get her suspected traitor Secret Secret Agent husband to cooperate)

Bauer: When are you people going stop thinking everyone else is following your rules- They're NOT!

Because committing acts of terrorism against innocent people is a wonderful way protect innocent people from terrorists - dont'cha know?

Episode 9

Mayer: Madame President I don't care if his source is the blessed virgin Mary nothing justifies what went on in this room.

Taylor: But what if he's right? What if it means we could save lives?

Mayer: Look at that (points to the bloody and battered Burnett) and tell me it's not barbarism? Is that something you can live with?

Bauer: Earlier today two airplanes were brought down - is THAT something you can live with?

Mayer: You're reprehensible Bauer.

Bauer: AND YOU SIR ARE WEAK - Unwilling and Unable to Look Evil in the Eye and DEAL WITH IT!

Right, all the people stand for Human Rights and against torture - are the "Weak People". The Pussies! It takes a REAL MAN to be a sadistic Dickhead who repeatedly inspires vicious terrorists to hunt and attack him and his country. Thanks for the Tip Jack.

And then there are those who feel "It's Just TV", so don't worry about it.

why are people making a big deal outta this? So 24 shows torture. Deal with the guys who abuse kids and kill innocent people first, then we can talk about a TV show.

-Oh, and another thing assholes, what happened to freedom of speech? Just turn if off if you don't like it, yes? I'm quite sure that's what you'd say if a program happened to be in alignment with something you advocated, but others were criticizing. Fucking hypocrites.

Well, the big deal is that it's not just one show. It's many many shows over a great many years including "Alias" and "Lost" that have perpetuated this MYTH that all you have to do is inflict enough pain and the bad guys will "Crack". All of us have seen that movie, from Dirty Harry to Death Wish to SAW VII, that moment when the bad guys finally says - "ENOUGH, I'll Tell you...I'll TALK!"

We've all seen it, and hardly any of us have stood up and walked out thinking "That's Bullshit". We consider it credible, we think it's plausible - we BUY INTO IT - but it's just a myth, no more valid or real than the idea that a young girl in a short skirt is asking to be raped and murdered by a pedophile - or that the dirty Juden Deserved the Ovens!

Yeah, I went went there, because Nazi Germany is a large part of why Geneva exists. If Bauer was real, by now he'd be a sadistic neo-fascist sociopath - and that's exactly the point. He's a War Criminal.

If we saw a suggestion like those two in a film almost no one (except maybe Bill O'Rielly or Pat Buchanan) would buy it as believable. Yet hardly anyone objects to the idea that "everybody breaks" - and that right there is the challenge that stands before anyone who supports Human Rights and the rule of law. Even people on our side of the argument, are often willing to make excuses and compromises for "Special Circumstance", but just as the UN Torture Convention state - there are no excuses. None. Zero. Even seriously entertaining the suggestion should be completely abhorrent to all of us - yet it's not.

The argument that real people don't take this seriously and don't believe what their seeing on the TV or movie screen is belied by the Real Experience of Interrogators in Iraq.

U.S. Army Interrogator Tony Lagouranis: We were told that the old rules (Geneva) didn't apply anymore and were encouraged by the Pentagon to "Be creative" - so we watched Movies and TV for ideas.

Thanks to Bush, Cheney and the Yoo Memo's all their training and all the rules We're Out the Window!" Here is an Iraq Veteran Interrogator TELLING YOU they took tips directly from shows like "24" (and still I'm sure people will argue that these shows had nothing to do with it even though Lagouranis is clearly saying that IT DID!).

Add this to the words of the interrogator who helped take out the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq - Abu Zarqawi - that Torture Is NEVER Neccessary



No one is suggesting Censorship, nor is simply ignoring a show you don't like or agree with a solution. Sticking our head in the sand does nothing to address the fact that Millions of Americans are being LIED TO and almost no one - NO ONE - in Hollywood is making a rational and responsible effort to get the truth out, even while they repeatedly perpetuate a lie that is costing American lives.

When all anyone hears is one side of the argument - that side wins by default. Ignoring it is tacitly endorsing it.

Contrast how many times you've seen in your own life someone screaming "No - Enough" on TV or a film with how many times you've seen what Alexander is talking about? How many times have you seen Hollywood show someone give a False Confession or bogus information just to make the pain stop the way we received false intelligence information from Ibn Sheilk al Libi and Abu Zubaydah, information which helped send us into pointless war with Iraq?

I've only seen it once that I can recall - on Showtime's Sleeper Cell which IMO was the most honest and accurate program on terrorism ever, but that's hardly enough to counter the cultural juggernaut that Bauer has become. He's practically a national Icon. No one is saying "24" shouldn't be made, or that the creators don't have a First Amendment Right to present their story the way they'd like to - but if that story is based on a LIE - it should be questioned and vigorously challenged. We should always recall that the best of our art is literature isn't simply done in a flashy or stylistic way - it also represent and illuminates some basic human truths, not lies.

Ironically in part 2 of the Human Rights First film some of our real life interrogators do happen to use a piece of Hollywood film making to help them make their point on young soldiers who've already seen years of successful torture - and that piece of film comes from way back in the pre 9-11 days of 1998's The Seige.



What we don't really see is someone like Agent Hubbard on "24" who doesn't wind up looking like and treated like a Coward and a Pussy. Last year the producers of "24" promised to "Tone done the Torture" after a visit from the Commandant of West Point Gen Finnegan, but they haven't, they've simply come up with louder excuses for it. Waiting for Bauer to lose the argument to Agent Moss or Senator Mayer is like expecting Colmes to have ever gotten the better of Hannity. The Shit is RIGGED - "Jack the Superhero" is always right and always wins the fight. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

But then again even on TV sometimes the Hero does lose, like on Season 2 of Sleeper Cell: American Terror when torture fails and the bad guy uses it to play them for a suckers. It's not that you can't do accurate TV addressing terrorism - you can - but only if people refuse to accept and idly stand for BAD MISLEADING TV about terrorism. People need to demand better, but they'll only do that when they realize like Mathew Alexander - THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

Yet Again, (because people really don't seem to get this point) no one is suggesting censorship or a boycott, but even a show like Mythbusters includes a clear disclaimer :"Don't try this at home - Ever."

Maybe at the very least "24" should have a similar disclaimer
; Don't Try this on the Battlefield - EVER!

Vyan

Canada might not be safe for Bush anymore...because of the Torture

A series of Canadian attorney's are seeking to have George W. Bush either Prosecuted or Banned from entering Canada because of the credible information that he was involved in Torture.

Bush is scheduled to speak in Calgary March 17, but Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson says that because Bush has been “credibly accused” of supporting torture in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Canada has a legal obligation to deny him entry under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The law says foreign nationals who have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, including torture, are “inadmissible” to Canada. ”The test isn’t whether the person’s been convicted, but whether there’s reasonable grounds to think that they have been involved,” says Davidson, who’s with Lawyers Against the War (LAW). “

This is Bush said in 2006 about Torture:



"We do not torture"...he says.

Yet when Bush finally left office he said this:



Bush claims that what he did was "Legal" based on opinions he received from the OLC, yet those very opinions have since been under review and the prelimarily indication is that the attorney involved - John Yoo, Jay Bybee - may just be DISBARRED for offering them.



Late last year a Gitmo Prosecutor openly ruled that WE DID TORTURE detainees.



From the Washington Post

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

As Congress dithers on weather or not a Truth Commission will take place, and questions continue on whether AG Holder will truly investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration and address torture via a Special Counsel it may fall to the nations of the world to finally bring Bush and his nest of torturers, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Cheney - to justice.

But whether it will be St. Patricks Day in Canada - remains a mystery.

The (Canadian) federal government is keeping silent on the upcoming visit. “We have no comments to offer on the visit of Mr. George W. Bush to Calgary,” said Foreign Affairs spokesperson Alain Cacchione in an e-mail. When told about Davidson’s letter, a spokesperson with the Canadian Border Services Agency said “we wouldn’t comment on something like that.” Davidson is one of many voices around the world calling for Bush’s prosecution. Earlier this year, Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, said the U.S. has a “clear obligation” to prosecute Bush and former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing torture — a violation of the UN Convention on Torture.

Regardless of what Canada does or doesn't do - the ball is truly in our court, if only we choose to run with it.

Vyan

Beck, Norris and Bauer - the Triumvariate of Wingnuttery

After reading rec'd diaries by Meteor Blades and Winter Rabbit on the Seccesionist Rants of Glenn Beck and Chuck (The President of Texas) Norris - I had a feeling we may have just crossed a Rubicon of Serious Nuttbaggery.

Then I went and found the actually interview and it's really much worse than previously advertised.

Much.

BECK: Chuck's the author of Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America. Chuck, you know what? I was talking about General Petraeus the other day. I mean this sincerely: I would love to have General Petraeus go up to Washington and clean that hornet's nest out. I'd like him to set up a military tribunal and call them in one by one, okay, going to have a little interview with you. Find out if they're guilty or innocent of being involved in, you know, all kinds of the scandals that are going on and kick them out.

NORRIS: I want to go with General Petraeus myself and be next to him and when he finds out who's guilty and, you know, dishonest, then I will take care of it for him. Took him out. I'll choke them out, the ones that he finds dishonest, I will choke them out and stick them into a pile.

Ok, let me get this straight - Chuck and Beck are talking here about essentially Overthrowing the Government, setting up their hero Petraeus as Military Dictator and putting Congress on trial one by one, after of course violently assaulting them without provocation. (Why not just use Gitmo and skip the trial?!)

This is more than a step beyond Michelle (Crazy like a Loon) Bachmann who felt there should be an investigation of Congress for "Anti-Americanism".

They then get into a discussion of one of my favorite subjects - that's right - the Enduring Heroism Neo-Conism of Jack Bauer.

GLENN: Do you ever watch 24?

NORRIS: I'm sorry?

GLENN: Do you ever watch the TV show 24?

NORRIS: No, I don't.

GLENN: Jack Bauer last night, he choked somebody out. Is that hard to do without killing them?

NORRIS: Yeah, you stop after 8 seconds. It takes 8 seconds for them to go unconscious.

GLENN: And then they --

NORRIS: They are always saying -- you know, since Jack Bauer, since I'm off the Walker series, everyone says, would Walker have a chance against Jack Bauer? I said Jack Bauer would last 5 seconds against Walker.

GLENN: Wow. But could you know which wire to cut if it was a nuke? Come on, Walker, come on, buddy.

NORRIS: I have good instincts, Glenn. My gut reaction will tell me which one to cut. That happens to Bauer, he doesn't know, either.

Hey guys - Bauer's a FICTIONAL CHARACTER! But then apparently so is Chuck Norris. I have talked time and time and time again about how the Wingers have been using Bauer and his actions as their Ultimate Example of Justice and LIberty. This is yet just another example of how divorced they are from facts and realty. Even if they realize HE'S NOT REAL - they not so secretly wish that he was real.

To further this point they go on to discuss a never released TV movie about an Osama Bin Laden "Dirty Bomb" attack on Chicago that was apparently filmed and scheduled to be shown just after September 11th and called - get this - "Ground Zero" - but was pulled by CBS. What a suprise, eh? (I'm willing to bet they could get ABC to put it on, they'll put on anything particularly if it makes Bill Clinton or Democrats in general look bad - just get Joel Surnow to write it.)

Beck: Holy Cow, that's amazing

Yeah, well the first episode of Fox's the X-Files Spinoff "The Lone Gunmen" which was shown just a couple months before 9-11 featured an attempt to crash an airplane into the World Trade Center - so you're not really all that special with the near clarvoiant TV Chuck.

On the Gunmen, the attempt to destroy the Tower is just a False Flag ploy to get the military industrial complex fired back up into high gear and start a war with a completely innocent nation - but then who would believe anyone in America would fall for something like that?

Yeah, right. Thank God it's just Tee Vee.

In the latest episode of "24" which as usual, got pretty stuck in my craw - Jack's latest failed interrogation gets a re-boot when Agent Walker (Hmm.. Walker!!?) proclaims "IF we'd just done things Jack's Way none of (all the usual "24" terrorist attacks) would have happened".

Ok, I've been watching all season and my question to the "24" writers is this: WHEN THE FUCK DID THEY NOT DO THINGS JACK's WAY!??

Simply because the "24" fans will always argue with me and try to justify anything Jack does - Let me just take a short walk through the ridiculousness of that statement (and hence try again to debunk the right-Wings endless syncophantic Worship of all things Bauer.)

Episode 1: Jack and Agent Renee Walker interrogate a gun-runner suspected of having ties to an impending terrorist attack. Renee let's Jack do whatever he wants - and the guy ends up shot by a sniper before he can reveal too much.

Episdoe 2: Jack figures the sniper had help from someone in the FBI and tells Renee he's disguised himself as one of them, they follow a suspicious agent and lo-and-behold he leads them directly to their target: Tony Almeida.

Episode 3: Jack asks to interrogate Tony himself - THEY LET HIM - and he discovers that Tony is working undercover to infiltrate the terrorists, so Jack helps Break him out of FBI headquarters.

Episode 5: Jack and Tony help kidnap a foreign Prime Minister Mutobo to prove their "Loyalty" and maintain Tony's cover in order to get closer to the chief terrorist - Dubaku, who meanwhile causes a mid-air collision killing over 200 people. Renee arrives chasing Tony and Jack, they take her hostage.

Episode 6: Jack pretends to "execute" Renee and buries her alive, later she is dug free by Bill Buchanan and Chloe Sullivan. Jack then reveals to Minister Mutobo that he is working with the "good guys" (Tony, Bill & Chloe), and talks them into to voluntarily being surrendered to the "bad guys" so they can locate them. The plan works and the attacks are stopped but Dubaku escapes, meanwhile the First Gentleman has been taken hostage.

Episode 7-8: Jack, Bill and Renee go to the President for help - she eventual agrees with their actions and charges them with finding the First Gentleman and Dubaku - "Whatever It Takes!" Phone records lead them to a currupt Secret Service Agent - Jack tells them to split up and go after both him and his Family. Only by threatening his wife and child are they likely to find the First Gentlemen sayeth Jack. SO THEY DO IT - and naturally, because this is television show, it works. The Agent is killed by Jack (in self-defense of course), the First Gentleman is found but wounded.

Episode 9-10: Jack and Renee locate Dubuku's girlfriend Marika and Jack talks her into leading them to him using GPS tracking of her cellphone. Dubuku is tipped off and destroys the phone, rather than continue following quietly Jack initiates a high-speed chase that ends in a crash that KILLS Marika and severely injures Dubaku. Jack threatens to deny medical attention to Dubauku and to hunt down his family to get the names of his accomplices - Dubaku passes out before he can give any information, but Jack finds it anyway in a chip hidden just under his skin and has it extracted after pulling his gun on the paramedics!

Episode 11-12: Tony comes to Jack and says he has a tip of yet another attack, but he doesn't know where only that a Congressional Staffer named Burnett is involved. Jack calls Chloe and has her commit obstruction of justice by deleting Burnett's name from Dubaku's file so that he won't be arrested and call for a lawyer before Jack can get to him. He tracks down Burnett in the White House and uses a taser to torture him, but he doesn't quite crack. Meanwhile Dubaku is killed in the Hospital by men working for his commanding officer Gen. Juma. Renee figures out that his death wasn't acidental, uses surveillance and detective work to find Juma and his commando team who are about to attack - The White House. Jack is arrested, Burnett calls for his lawyer and Juma attacks.

Episode 13: In the melee of the attack Jack is released by Bill and somehow winds up being the one person who gets the President to the Safe Room. They are eventually lured out by a threat against the first daughter, but manage to set a booby trap. Washington Bureau Chief Larry Moss defies the Vice President and orders a counter attack after Bill Buchanan sets off the trap and is killed in the explosion. The President is saved, Jack is arrested again. Renee goes over Larry Moss's head to the President's Chief of Staff to support Jack's plan to continue the interrogation of Burnett. Moss is overruled and since he believes so deeply in the chain of command - excluding of course the Veep - he immediately suspends Renee, then follows through with Jack's plan. Juma's *OTHER* set of accomplices are tipped-off and manage to get an operative in place to immobilize Jack with a nerve agent and kill Burnett before he can talk - the Third interrupted interrogation of the day - and of course frame Jack for Burnett's death (The same thing that happened with Jack's own brother during an interrogation last season - Jack NEVER Learns!). Jack being Jack, rather than let his blood be screened for toxins and prove his innocence - RUNS FOR IT! WhattaHero!

In short, Renee finds out the same information that Jack's is torturing people to discover by simply doing her job properly - and the truth is if Jack had been Following Her LEAD and backing her up the Attack on the White House would have been prevented - not the other way around. To claim that they haven't done Everything the way Jack's wanted to do it - is just PLAIN NUTS. And because they did it Jack's Way - Agent Vossler is Dead, Dubaku is Dead, Marika is Dead, Burnett is Dead and Bill Buchanan is Dead. It's particularly nutty coming from Renee since her own actions prove Jack Wrong, but then again that's the way guys like Beck and Norris Roll, with thier blather about "red wires", "green wires", "Walker could kick Bauer's ASS in 5 seconds" - yeah, except that Jack would just SHOOT YOU Dumbass. They really do think this crap is real.

But I digress.

Getting back to actual reality, there is a serious point in all this. Beck is apparently sponsoring a big Call to Arms event on March 13th, called "We Surround Them".

It was described on Beck's program this way.

Thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation. You can host or attend a viewing party by going to Glenn's website. My wife Gena and I will be hosting one from our Texas ranch, in which we've invited many family members, friends and law enforcement to join us. It's our way of saying "We're united, we're tired of the corruption, and we're not going to take it anymore!"

They're tired of the corruption Now? NOW!?

Clearly this is a call out to the Palinites among us. We have members of Congress saying they need to function as an Insurgency - Like the Taliban. Former Presidential Candidates like Alan Keyes have openly sounded the insurrectionist alarm arguing that OBAMA MUST BE STOPPED OR AMERICA IS LOST. We have already had a hard core Right-Wingnut Take Up Arms and commit Acts of Terrorism including Mass Murder in Knoxville, an Attempted Dirty Bomber has been found - this is NO Joke, it's not TV - it's bad enough that the Real FBI is on High Alert.

The FBI monitors and investigates all the white supremacist groups and websites and the guy I know in NY told me that Obama's election has turned into the best recruiting tool they have ever used. Membership is up for the first time in I don't know how long, and new hate websites are emerging every week. Some of the websites actually call for Obama's assassination in their title!

The only solace I can offer is that, typically, these assholes are usually just that: a bunch of bored blowhards, terrified by the pace of a world that is passing them by, who have nothing better to do than complain, blame others for their shitty lives and spew their hatred and pitifully ignorant views online.

So far the danger to the populace from these people and their uber-Patriot "Do Whatever is Neccessary!" ideas are likley to have limited effect only because they are each operating alone and independently. They're just "Lone Gunmen" so to speak, but what is likely to happen when you pile a big ton of pissed-off wingnuts all together all at once and let them simmer on some spicy Liberal Hatred?

What do all these dimbulbs think Jack Bauer would do?

Nothing good will come of this, mark my words.

Vyan

The Truth about Neo-Fascist Conservatism

Appearing on DL Hughley, former Right-Wing Evangelist and Huffington Post contributor Frank Schaeffer comes out swinging and leaves few bodies standing in the G.O.P.

Schaeffer: The Republican Party has become a hard-edged neo-fascist thing that has given us 8 years of a bad Presidency, a collapsed economy and two wars one of which we shouldn't have been in...

I'm sorry to say my father had a lot to do with it, along with (Falwell, Robertson and Dobsen) we put all this crap in place. If you approach God in a certain way - it will drive you crazy.

Schaeffer: We've moved from a period where Republicanism represented something you could either agree or disagree with (Goldwater) to period where you are either a fundamentalist Christian on one side, or a view of the world you are someone who sees anyone who is different, be that black, white, Arab, muslim, gay or foreign as the enemy. And there's nothing in between. When you look at a guy like Rush Limbaugh - it's like taking the lid off - the is the Raw, Naked Face of where Republicanism is (today).

That of course goes a long way toward explaining Michele The Demi Glas of Wingnuttia Bachman. Schaeffer doesn't pretend to know how much of The Crazy most Republican leaders are fully swallowing, but he does admit that they now have little choice in openly pandering to their wing-nut base. That's pretty much all they have left.

It's little surprise then when Limbaugh says something as completely off-the-rails as Every Republican is hoping the President's Policies Fail when were in the midst of a global economic crisis, most Republican leaders (particularly those who aren't holding office and can speak freely) essentially agree with him.

Including Jonah Goldberg. - Mike Pence - David Vitter - Rick Santorum - Tom Delay - and naturally Michelle Malkin.

Oh, sure there are some nay-sayers such as Newt Gingrich who tries to split the baby by claiming "No one rational wants the President to fail - we just want him to learn new policies."

Well, then Newty I guess your hoping to once again lead the party of the irrational. But then again after months of "Socialist", "Communist", "Terrorist" and "Baby-Killer" accusations isn't a little late for anyone to expect the hardcore Repubs to pull the head from their ANUS now?

We have to realize it's become perma-bonded in place.

When you lead you life based on blind-belief in either the unfallable "Free Markets" or the impending "Rapture" - you don't have much interest in facts, science or the resulting real-time suffering of your Americans, and fellow Humans, as the super-structure of their lives collapses around their feet.

Poe sang this years ago "You can't talk to a Psycho, like a Normal Human Being."

Schaeffer sums this up at the end of the interview beautifully.

Schaeffer: They Do Hate Him (Obama). Rush Limbaugh is telling the truth when he says he wants the President to Fail. These people are ideological enough that they rather see the whole country go down *the tubes), and be proved "Right" - rather than do the patriotic thing and support the President.

Hughley: Why are Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh so tremendously popular? It makes me feel as an American like this is how a large portion of the country feels.

Schaeffer: No, I don't think so. The Religous Right started with good intentions, and then was manipulated by very crass people for personal gain. Today you have about 20 Million people who buy all of Ann Coulter's books, watch Rush Limbaugh, send in the money to the Televangelists - it's all the same people. The fact of the matter is there's 300 Million of us - there's not 20 Million of us.

It's not a big percentage, it's just a LOUD percentage. This is the drunk on the end of the subway making all the trouble for the people on the car minding their own business - there's a hundred decent citizens and one ASS at the head of the train molesting women - That's the Republican Party Now!.

Amen!

Vyan