Rove, Kristol Laugh At Idea U.S. Arrested American Muslims Without Trial: ‘We Didn’t Do It!’
Rove, Kristol Laugh At Idea U.S. Arrested American Muslims Without Trial: ‘We Didn’t Do It!’
On Tuesday, Karl Rove and Bill Kristol debated journalists Simon Jenkins and Jacob Wiesberg at an event sponsored by BBC. The debate was whether “President Bush is the worst president of the last 50 years“; Jenkins and Weisberg argued in favor of the resolution, while Rove and Kristol argued against it.
At one point, Weisberg said that the Bush administration had never convinced the world that it had “not taken out Muslims as a particular group.” Kristol and Rove literally laughed at the idea that the United States had targeted and arrested American Muslims as part of its “war on terror” effort:
KRISTOL: What have we done to Muslims in America? What has happened?
JENKINS: Arrested them.
KRISTOL: We’ve arrested Muslims in America? [LAUGHTER]
JENKINS: Incarcerated them without trial.
KRISTOL: We’ve incarcerated Muslims in America without trial?
ROVE: Rounded them up? Rounded, rounded them up? Name one?
KRISTOL: Nonsense.
ROVE: Name one instance.
JENKINS: The, [UNCLEAR] belabor me all day with lists of people who have vanished. Vanished.
ROVE: You know-
KRISTOL: Well, that-
ROVE: This is on the border of lunacy, with all due respect.
JENKINS: But you didn’t need to do it, you didn’t need to do it-
ROVE: We didn’t do it!
Posting the exchange — to highlight what he saw as Jenkins’ idiocy — on Contentions, Abe Greenwald dismissed Jenkins’ claims as “therapeutic mythologies” that were part of “Bush-villification.” “With their vanishing Muslims, torture chambers, and evil corporate overlords, Bush haters are better suited to the Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi convention circuit than to the political sphere,” Greenwald wrote.
The specific targeting of Muslims in America is hardly a myth:
In a secret meeting of top Justice Department officials hours after the [9/11] attacks, then-immigration chief James Ziglar rebuked those in the room for proposing a “roundup” of Arabs and Muslims. “I’m not going to be part of this if we’re going to do things that blatantly violate the law,” Ziglar declared, according to people there. [Knight Ridder, 6/15/03]
The Census Bureau’s decision to give to the Department of Homeland Security data that identified populations of Arab-Americans was the modern-day equivalent of its pinpointing Japanese-American communities when internment camps were opened during World War II, members of an advisory board told the agency’s top officials Tuesday. “This for the Arab-American community is 1942,” said Barry Steinhardt, a civil liberties lawyer and member of the panel, the Decennial Census Advisory Committee. “Thousands of Arab-Americans have been rounded up and deported.” [New York Times, 11/10/04]
83,310: Number of foreign visitors from 24 predominantly Muslim nations who registered with the government after U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft required them to do so. (North Koreans also required to register.)
13,740: Number of those 83,310 who were ordered into deportation proceedings.
0: Number who were publicly charged with terrorism, although officials say a few have terrorism connections. [Chicago Tribune, 11/16/03]
One of the most high-profile detainees was an American citizen — who was held for 21 months on a naval brig before being given access to a lawyer. Jose Padilla was held for over three years before being formally charged with a crime, and by the time he had been convicted, he had already served 5 1/2 years. What’s more, his harsh confinement left him with severe mental disabilities from which psychologists warned he may never recover.
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Let’s guess, Greenwald has his AIPAC dues paid up?
December 4th, 2008 at 8:14 pmOMFG! I knew they would try to spin the past eight years in order to craft some sort of “legacy” that goes beyond murder, torture, looting and destroying our Constitution, but this is already way beyond what I was expecting!
Phuck you, George and the Rove you rode in on, too. You can’t rewrite the past, especially when it’s still going on!
Now, GO AWAY!
PEACE
December 4th, 2008 at 8:18 pmWe should use the same tactics on KKKarl Rove. Just round his fat ass up and send him to egypt to be tortured for the crimes he has commited. Kristol should be whipped like a little child for being such a lying sack of you know what.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:31 pmThe dynamic duo in action: Tubby McTreason Rove and Baghdad Kristol. I am certainly not going to waste my time deciphering comments from an idiot and a criminal. Both are overexposed and their airtime need to be taken away.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:36 pmAt least they’re on the ropes….it’s about time.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:55 pmRove & Kristol are lying, hateful morons. Both think the puiblic are so stupid they’ll believe anything, even all Rove’s / Kristol’s absurd opinions, lies, hate-mongering, and, well…. lies. Rove/Kristol care nothing about honesty & facts. They only care about hateful, dishonest hype. Both are creepy, lying low-lifes. GO away, crawl back under your rocks. We despise you both.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:58 pmThese b@stards are unbelievable. So mentally cruel.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:02 pmMay I quote someone from Deliverance: He sure does have a purdy mouth (referring to Kristol).
Kristol, on his own with no backup, would run away crying.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:04 pmTo quote from Robert E.Howard:
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
In addition to discourteous, I would add dishonest, craven, smug….etc.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:09 pmExactly how much contact with the Justice Dept did Karl Rove have to be so certain of his facts?
December 4th, 2008 at 9:28 pmRove and Kristol are both sociopaths. This is not considered a mental illness, but a character disorder which is untreatable. The only difference between it and rabies is that rabies can be treated with a antirabies serum if treated prior to the arising of any symptoms. Rabid animals are put down, in order to protect other animals and people.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:32 pmPerhaps Rove and Kristol could be persuaded to donate their brains to science. Clearly, there are pieces missing from the right-wing brain–such as the part that governs self-criticism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WugcAuQMP1s
December 4th, 2008 at 10:20 pmThere is nothing else to say.
WORST president in history.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:28 pmBehind every bad president is a bad advisor.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:34 pmEven Rove and Kristol don’t believe a single word they say themselves. After 8 long years of the failed Bush Administration they created and propped up, all these losers have to offer America is 8 years of convincing themselves AND us that sister Sarah Palin will save us all.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:54 pmThey will try to re-write history, but we will not allow it.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:59 pm.
These Fascists would deny their own Savior if it made them look pretty in the public eye.
.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:44 amOn Tuesday, Karl Rove and Bill Kristol debated journalists Simon Jenkins and Jacob Wiesberg at an event sponsored by BBC. The debate was whether “President Bush is the worst president of the last 50 years“; Jenkins and Weisberg argued in favor of the resolution, while Rove and Kristol argued against it.
Damn. I would like to have heard Rove’s argument for why Bush ISN’T the worst president of the last fifty years.
What can he say? … “Nixon was worse”?
December 5th, 2008 at 1:14 amJose Padilla ONLY got a trail when it was clear the Supreme Court was going to force the Bush administation to give him one and THAT Is after three years. They kept him without access to a lawyer all along saying they NEVER had to bring him to trial. When it was certain they would be FORCED TO they gave him one and are now DENYING they kept Muslims without trial. Ah yeah you did. For at least three years. Then there is Yassir Hamdi was an American citizen kept three years without a trail and only released when the SC told Bush he WASNT PHAROAH and couldnt hold US citizens without trial. So after being FORCED THREE years each and only allowing trial or release after being FORCED by the SC these guys are LAUGHING at the idea they held American Muslims without trial. They are dispicable lying cretins without even a concept of honesty
December 5th, 2008 at 6:07 amZooey Says:
They will try to re-write history, but we will not allow it.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
_________
Absolutely. The blogosphere is the plug in the Memory Hole.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:12 amBULL HOCKEY!!!
OUTRIGHT LIES!!!!
Again, they must be talking to that 20 some percent who will believe every piece of crap that comes from their mouths.
They will not be able to rewrite history because our children have excellent memories, as do we, and it will not be allowed this time. He is not Reagan (another crappy prez who got credited for things he really had no part of except in his Alzheimer’s addled brain) and we will not allow this history to repeat itself again.
They will always be lying, smirking, poisonous, treasonous cowards forever in history. NEVER AGAIN!!
December 5th, 2008 at 6:37 amI share your outrage, EugeneDebs. Our treatment of Jose Padilla is a stain on our national honor (what is left of it) as is the fact that it still has not been redressed.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:49 amthis is all part of CREATING THEIR OWN REALITY, & if Obama “lets bygones be bygones”, THEY WILL SUCCEED.
…& Kristol & Rove know it.
they are confident that there is going to be NO ACCOUNTABILITY and NO DAY OF RECKONING.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:44 amOf course this has nothing to do with the “Bush legacy” directly. It is about the ROVE legacy. Rove doesn’t want his reputation to be that of a person who put the worst President EVER into office, so he defends the President – or, more precisely, defends the actions of the administration. Notice that the word “Bush” hardly ever crosses his lips in this discussion. He’s not trying to re-write the history of “Bush”, he’s trying to re-write the history of the last 8 years.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:57 amI can name one. Brandon Mayfield, an attorney from Portland, Oregon who is Muslim was picked up and detained for several months. There was no trail as there was no evidence linking him to a bombing in Spain, I believe, just after 9/11.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:53 pm