Rep. King: Jay Bybee ’should be given a medal for what he did.’
Rep. King: Jay Bybee ’should be given a medal for what he did.’
This afternoon on Fox News, correspondent Brian Wilson reported that “left leaning groups and some Democrats” believe torture architect Judge Jay Bybee should be impeached. Responding to a question from Wilson, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said, “I think someone who writes a how-to memo on how to break the law should not be a federal judge.” The ultra conservative Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the polar opposite view, telling Wilson that Bybee should be “given a medal” for authorizing torture:
KING: I think that Judge Bybee should be given a medal for what he did. But even if I disagreed with those memos, these are memos written in good faith. These well written, well reasoned memos. People may disagree with them, but he belongs on the bench. He should stay on the bench. And I think talk of impeaching him or going after him is again the worst type of political vindictiveness.
Watch it:
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Yup,he deserves a Presidental Medal of Freedom. Just like tenet who lied about WMD in Iraq, Bremmer who spent a year creating a mess of Iraq so we could stay there and let the repubs profit, and Franks, who put his own career ahead of his troops.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:17 pmKING: I think that Judge Bybee should be given a memo for what he did.
Memo: To whom it may concern
April 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pmPlease send a memo to your proofreaders regarding posted copy.
Isn’t it nice that these people are lining up for censure and impeachment? With a little luck we can totally reformat Congress in the next year without having to wait for elections.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:21 pmNOSSEUM, you beat me to the punch line!!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:22 pmHere’s a memo for the judge. Resign before you are further disgraced during your impeachment trial.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:23 pmThat was quick, thanks, TP
Patsy, take a memo…
April 24th, 2009 at 4:23 pmOkey, doke. Soon as his torture-loving ass gets impeached and he’s thrown off the bench into the street, King can give him the “Batshit Insane Medal of Shame” which will become the highest honor for any Republican.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:25 pmHere we go… replace discrace with medals of honor, just like bush did. Now that’s a solution republicans can get behind.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:26 pmTypical, expected response from an ideologue. Party over policy. Party over integrity.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:29 pmRepugs have a problem in separating their ideology from honesty and soundness.
Respect for laws, morals, ethics, honesty — all those qualities are sacrificed as necessary in order to preserve their party members.
As long as I get to name and design the medal.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:29 pmI think Jay Bybee belongs on the bench also.
Strapped down, blindfolded and naked, dowsed with ice water then hot water, a rag stuffed in his mouth, and someone pouring his favorite beverage as fast as he can.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pmPeter King is what is soon to be know as an extinct species, a New York Repulican.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pmWhat a joke, republicans are truly a disgrace to the law.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pmAfter he’s ejected from the bench there’s always the GOP/conservative/neocon welfare program as a strategist at one of the many Republican “Think Tanks” where they get ideas like invading and occupying Iraq, spying on Americans without a warrant, and pilfering the Treasury.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:31 pmwhat kings “needs” is to be send home by his constituents.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:32 pmThanks noseeum for the quick proof read! Apologies for the error.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:35 pmRepublican faith
April 24th, 2009 at 4:35 pmAlways acting in good faith
Faith the firing thwkwad
So if bye-bye wrote a memo stating it’s ok to kill and torture US citizens it will be all right?
repugs it’s not vindication it’s called law. Not repug law, but the law, dumbasses.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:36 pmGood faith my ass.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:37 pmKing is a hypocrite. If Bybee had issued that memo while a Democrat was President, King would be condemning torture and calling for Bybee’s head — along with all the other Republicans.
Does this mean that if this all happened under a Democratic President, we progressives would support torture? No — I can’t imagine any set of circumstances where we would. Certainly not because we have the need to support our party even when what our party does is repugnant.
And this may be one of the biggest differences between us and them.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:38 pmBobwurst Says:
Yup,he deserves a Presidental Medal of Freedom. Just like tenet who lied about WMD in Iraq, Bremmer who spent a year creating a mess of Iraq so we could stay there and let the repubs profit, and Franks, who put his own career ahead of his troops.
Franks? Who is that?
April 24th, 2009 at 4:39 pmThese are memos written for a seat on the Appeals Court. The same whoring that Blago is going on trial for. Gimmie a friggin’ braak!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pmA medal!? King needs to be waterboarded and kicked in his a$$!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pmEasy for King to say what Bybee endorsed wasn’t wrong when he’s never been tortured.
What Adolf Hitler and Jay Bybee did was wrong. Why do Republikkkans always side with evil?
April 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pmKING: I think that Judge Bybee should be given a medal for what he did. But even if I disagreed with those memos, these are memos written in good faith.
Peter King believes trying to usurp the law of the land with poorly written and inane memos , is something based upon “good faith” ?
If he was truly that gullible , there’d be every con artist in America camped out as his doorstep , trying to sell him magic elixirs ………
What a tool
April 24th, 2009 at 4:46 pmMaybe they can award Bybee the Iron Cross.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:50 pmI hear that it’s quite popular with those who were ‘just following orders’.
Ryan Powers Says:
Thanks noseeum for the quick proof read! Apologies for the error.
Happy to help, Ryan…
IMHO, Jay Bybee is deserving of a memo, along the lines of:
April 24th, 2009 at 4:50 pmMemo:
Jay, you’re fired.
BillFromDover Says:
these are memos written in good faith.
These are memos written for a seat on the Appeals Court. The same whoring that Blago is going on trial for. Gimmie a friggin’ braak!
Excellent point.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:51 pmPerhaps that really bad rug he is wearing has overheated his brain and thus clouded his thinking. Perhaps he should cool off and attempt to think clearly about what he is saying.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pmI can’t get in the head of a person who thinks those who enable torture are the good guys. It’s a good thing.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:53 pmPFWoody488 Says:
Maybe they can award Bybee the Iron Cross.
Or the Iron Maiden…
April 24th, 2009 at 4:53 pmAnd America is now the moral equivalent of a Mel Brooks musical comedy…
April 24th, 2009 at 4:57 pmGame of Life Says
April 24th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
So if bye-bye wrote a memo stating it’s ok to kill and torture US citizens it will be all right?
__________________________________________________________
In King’s world, yes. See — these guys have no problems with the rights of U.S. citizens going into the dumpster because they assume it will always be “other” U.S. citizens, not them. If they perceived their OWN rights were being taken away, they’d be screaming bloody murder — as evidenced by their reaction to the DHS report.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:58 pmDid this fool threaten us at the end of the vid?
Something like the repugs won’t go along with anything if this goes through????
Did I hear this right?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
April 24th, 2009 at 5:00 pm.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) thinks TORTURE is worthy of a medal…
… And yet, Lynndie was convicted.
Why does Rep. Peter King (R-NY) hate Lynndie England?
.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:01 pm.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) thinks we should reward TORTURE!
.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:04 pmGame of Life Says:
Something like the repugs won’t go along with anything if this goes through????
The Republicans won’t go along with anything anyway. When they all voted 100% against the stimulus package after concessions were made, they overplayed their hand. Nobody’s going to bother giving their concerns the time of day now.
.
Max Anax junius -1 Says:
Why does Rep. Peter King (R-NY) hate Lynndie England?
Because to them, enlisted personnel are useful only as convenient scapegoats, when they aren’t being useful as cannon fodder.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:04 pmonly cowards support torture
April 24th, 2009 at 5:05 pm.
Q U E S T I O N:
Why does Rep. King’s America look different from the “REAL” America?
.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:05 pm.
I hope Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is penning that letter to Japan…
… Apologizing for placing members of their military on trial and their subsequent execution. Is he ready to apologize for that?
.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:07 pmI think an “SS” officers lapel pin would suit him just fine.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:09 pmQuestion: If Nadler had called for Judge Bybee to receive a medal, would King then demand that Bybee resign?
April 24th, 2009 at 5:10 pmThis congressman makes the entire state he represents look like a bunch of pathetic morons.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:16 pmVituperation Toxicity Says
April 24th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Question: If Nadler had called for Judge Bybee to receive a medal, would King then demand that Bybee resign?
_____________________________________________________________
Of course. Either that, or King would call for Bybee to be arrested for treason.
The ONLY factor determining his position on anything is whether or not it’s supported by a Democrat. Then he’ll take the opposite position.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:17 pmWOW! The Repugs aren’t just shooting themselves in the foot, they’re turning themselves into virtual Swiss cheese.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:19 pm.
Dear Rep. Peter King (R-NY),
… And Hitler gave good speeches, too.
.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:20 pmI’m guessing the party is over. I don’t want to have any false hope, but just look at them now.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:23 pmAlthough Peter King and I are both Notre Dame graduates, we somehow learned very different lessons on morality while students there. For example, my conscience tells me that torturing my fellow man is inherently immoral.
I believe that those who promote and justify torture, especially those in positions of authority such as Jay Bybee, deserve not simply to be impeached, but also to be brought before the International Court of Justice at the Hague to answer for their crimes against humanity.
I also take the strongest exception to King’s remark that “these are memos written in good faith. These well written, well reasoned memos.” On the contrary, they were written to justify acts recognized as torture by US and international law; acts which were opposed as such by military judge advocates general. And they were neither well written nor well reasoned.
I am a retired Army intelligence officer, who has the greatest respect for the US Constitution and Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
Peter King should be ashamed as I am ashamed that he is a Notre Dame grad!
April 24th, 2009 at 5:23 pmMax Anax junius -1 Says:
.
I hope Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is penning that letter to Japan…
… Apologizing for placing members of their military on trial and their subsequent execution. Is he ready to apologize for that?
This is what tics me off to no end.
All should be prosecuted from chimpy on down.
And President Obama should excuse any of them.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:37 pmEven before King’s backwards-assed comment…he’d be out of Congress come January 2011. He’s running against Gillibrand and his district, though still nominally GOP, won’t be able to field a credible challenger.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:40 pmmisscoleopteramolly Says:
The ONLY factor determining his position on anything is whether or not it’s supported by a Democrat. Then he’ll take the opposite position.
Hmm… maybe we should start supporting Cheney.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:43 pmPeter King, you are an embarrassment to us New Yorkers. Those memos were not written “in good faith,” they were written specifically to provide cover for illegal acts. And everyone involved in crafting that policy belongs in jail. Every single one of them.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:49 pmAre King and Bybee both Liberty grads? Oral Roberts?
April 24th, 2009 at 5:49 pmGame of Life, eh…
April 24th, 2009 at 6:11 pm… It’s not Fascism when America does it, NO?
King is supposedly a very religious man but something tells me that waterboarding is not something Jesus would do. He’s another Fake Christian hack who needs to re-read his Bible before opening his ignorant mouth.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:12 pmGame of Life Says:
Something like the repugs won’t go along with anything if this goes through????
Yeah, Obama doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:28 pmIs it a suppositorium Medal?!
April 24th, 2009 at 6:29 pmThere is an argument for why these memos are not in “good faith” at Balkinization.
Remember, the Republicans are trying to make what they did legal. They are trying to legalize torture. They will call it something else, but it’s torture. And to win the public over, they need to convince enough people that Guantanamo was full of terrorists, that the government got valuable information from torture, and that there is a ticking-time-bomb threat, at all times, that only torture can address. None of that is true.
Also sensory and severe sleep deprivation are psychologically brutal—torture. We should not be mistreating prisoners at all, and quite frankly, very few of these men should have been prisoners in the first place. Most of them were hostages taken for propaganda purposes.
We should not torture. We should not take hostages.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:35 pmMichelle Bachmann wanted an investigation to find out which members of Congress were Anti-American.
I agree with her.
It seems as though we have members of Congress that support torturing prisoners.
How Anti-American can you get.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:41 pmWhy would anyone take this man seriously? With all due respect — and I’m saying this as someone who typically makes an effort to avoid using personal insults in favor of critiquing specific arguments — Peter King is in my honest opinion one of the more boneheaded specimens within the neoconservative ranks. This is the same man, after all, who tried to claim that “being in Baghdad is like being in Manhattan” — and after having lived in Manhattan for many years, I can personally testify to the fact that most of us actually don’t risk getting shot or blown up on a daily basis. If we did, I’d either have left long before this or would be barricading myself in my apartment — and you can bet that the terrorist threat level would be fixed permanently in the red.
Of course Peter King sees torture as justifiable…that’s because he’s nothing more than another neoconservative yahoo who believes that Might Makes Right and that self-interest is the ultimate ethical principle. As far as I can tell from their behavior, that’s the neoconservative creed in a nutshell.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:46 pmI agree!!! But there is a typo in the headline-
He should be given a METAL, a very heavy Iron Metal that is strapped around his neck and then drop him in the nearest river.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:50 pmThese well written, well reasoned memos.
Actually, most legal experts think that the memos were garbage and poorly written. They were written expressly to meet a goal that was set by the Bush Crime Family. This is not the kind of person we want sitting on a judicial bench anywhere.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:58 pmElBruce Says:
Game of Life Says:
Something like the repugs won’t go along with anything if this goes through????
Yeah, Obama doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
HAHAHAHAHA I love it!
April 24th, 2009 at 7:06 pmBybee needs to be impeached. His primary role in the legal justification of torture has corrupted the very legal system he has sworn to uphold. His duty was to advise the president that what they were suggesting was illegal. He has betrayed his country and its people. The man is not fit to be a judge or a lawyer. He has no ethics or principles.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:44 pmThe whole torture episode is leading to a real confidence crisis in our government. The military, the CIA and the legal system have lost their credibility. Another Cheney/Bush legacy put in the hands of the new administration. This may prove to be worse than the financial crisis, that is why all the caution
The Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by Bush was a merely ornate dog tag for his lapdogs and attack dogs. King’s statements are an index of the moral bankruptcy of American conservatism.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:22 pmLet’s talk about George Tenet, PMoF awardee.
A number of times, when questioned on the faulty reasoning for the Iraq war, Bush/Cheney says “I wish the intelligence had been better,” or “we received faulty intelligence.” Basically what they’re saying is they got totally Punk’d by an incompetent CIA. I’ve never heard either them or any right-winger call for heads to roll in the CIA, or for even the lowest level of CIA analyst involved in this to be fired, much less indicted, for producing a false report that led the White House into deciding to start a war based on false evidence. Not once. Nowhere out in Right Blogistan has a wingnut ever called for the head of that damn CIA analyst who got George Bush into so much trouble.
Why is that?
And why, in the name of all that is holy, would Dubya put a Presidential Medal of Freedom around George Tenet’s neck while that question remains unanswered?
April 25th, 2009 at 2:53 amIf I’m not mistaken isn’t King’s seat coming up for re-election, another wayward elephant?
April 25th, 2009 at 3:59 amThat little man is one truly sick fcuk.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:22 pmBybee was made a judge for his contribution to torture cause. It was his very own medal of freedom.
April 25th, 2009 at 2:49 pmAlternative title: “King admits Baybee did it.”
April 25th, 2009 at 5:19 pmPeter King should be rounded up with the other RepubliCon traitor and war criminals.
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