Krauthammer: I will say things in my column even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.
Krauthammer: I will say things in my column even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.
On May 1, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer conceded in a column that waterboarding is torture. Krauthammer argued that torture is justifiable “under two circumstances” and that in those cases “you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding.” But in an interview on Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Krauthammer said that he didn’t mean it when he wrote that waterboarding is torture:
MILLER: And I’m going to move beyond that and say the pertinent question to me is, is it necessary. Where do you stand on this?
KRAUTHAMMER: You know, I’m in the midst of writing a column for this week, which is exactly on that point. Some people on the right have faulted me because in that column that you cite I conceded that waterboarding is torture. Actually, I personally don’t think it is cause it’s an absurdity to have to say the United States of America has tortured over 10,000 of its own soldiers because its, you know, it’s had them waterboarded as a part of their training. That’s an absurd sentence. So, I personally don’t think it is but I was willing to concede it in the column without argument exactly as you say to get away from the semantic argument, which is a waste of time and to simply say call it whatever you want. We know what it is. We know what actually happened. Should it have been done and did it work? Those are the only important questions.
Listen here:
No where in Krauthammer’s original article did he say that he was making the concession for the sake of argument. Given his comments to Miller, it seems that Krauthammer feels comfortable asserting claims in his Washington Post column that he doesn’t actually believe to be true. Responding to falsehoods in a previous Krauthammer column, Yglesias once wrote that “the only question is why The Washington Post thinks it’s a good idea to publish columns that are designed to mislead its audience rather than to inform its audience.” It’s still a good question.
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WE KNOW THAT!!!!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:14 pmYou and ninety percent of the politicians.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:16 pmKrauthammer: I will say things in my column even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.
Thanks for pointing out FAUX’s motto/credo ; as if we didn’t already know ….
May 13th, 2009 at 4:18 pmI thought it was Steele that said this:
Maybe he was just channeling Krauthammer..
May 13th, 2009 at 4:20 pmKrauthammer is one of the sleeziest, creepiest, snakey varmits you will ever hear speaking English.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:21 pmAnother Republican telling us, don’t believe anything I say.
Sooner or later, America will listen.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:21 pmWhat a lame attempt to weasel out of his former position.
scumbag!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:23 pmDow [close] -184.22 (-2.18%)
See what you went and did Krauthammer
May 13th, 2009 at 4:23 pmI personally don’t think it is cause it’s an absurdity to have to say the United States of America has tortured over 10,000 of its own soldiers because its, you know, it’s had them waterboarded as a part of their training. That’s an absurd sentence.
“My interpretation of the truth sounds absurd to me, so therefore the truth must be false”
May 13th, 2009 at 4:25 pmRepubs seem to believe hypocrisy is a virtue. It is so bad we are becoming desensitized to it. This shows they are even bragging about it. I need to go throw up now…
May 13th, 2009 at 4:26 pmNow this a revelation! Dennis Miller has a talkshow?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:26 pmSo, Mr. Krauthammer, that is the very definition of PROPAGANDA.
Own it, you little sh*t.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:27 pmSo if we train our troops to withstand torture it is no longer torture and we can use the former torture technique against others? Welcome to Bizarro World Chuck.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:29 pmOooops! Credibility is totally irrelevant to conservatives!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:29 pmMay 13th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Does Krauthammer realize, I wonder, that he may have painted himself into a corner and rendered himself irrelevant by making this statement? Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, folks — but my understanding has always been that newspapers hire columnists because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that there’s something of value in the opinion which these people have to contribute. Since Krauthammer has admitted to making statements in his column which do not reflect his true opinion, this casts doubt on the sincerity — and therefore, the worth — of anything he’s ever written. If what he writes in his column does not reflect his true opinion — regardless of how reasonable or accurate his opinion may be — then what good is it?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:30 pmwell, what he’s really done is abandoned the direct argument that waterboarding isn’t torture and accepted the argument that if we do it to our own people — who agree to its administration as part of their training, know the people whoa re administering it, and know that their health is not in serious risk — then it can’t be torture.
i don’t understand why they think that’s a better argument. but — conceding that point *for the purposes of this comment* — fine, let’s prosecute the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency for waterboarding americans, too. if the repugnicans really don’t think there is a difference (see here for a counterargument), then a trial should put that into perspective for them.
it’s disingenuous for kristol to argue that bickering over whether waterboarding is torture is a “semantic argument” but arguing that waterboarding can’t be torture because we do it to our own military. it’s beyond disingenuous. it’s utterly dishonest, misleading and frankly craven.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:31 pmDoes Charles “Sour” Krauthammer hear himself?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:32 pmThat tortured it’s own soldiers is such an obtuse argument . It makes me gnash my teeth. First they volunteered for torture to be used on them as a training device secondly they know it is being done by friendly hands. It is done to prepare them for less enlightened countries antics OOPS that would be us
May 13th, 2009 at 4:32 pmhahaha! P***ies the USA is
May 13th, 2009 at 4:33 pmA nation of tyranny rape, child labor abuses to feed your fat faces of the American. Exploit and pollute the world. You going down
Wateboarding is not torture you w*ssies this is torture. Get it straight http://theync.com/media.php?name=6826-shocking-man-is-murdered
Where’s Slappy? I’ll bet he could really relate to Krauthammer’s “I’ll say it, but I don’t really mean it,” regarding torture. The guy said exactly the same thing last night on the Ventura thread.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:34 pmWateboarding is not torture you w*ssies this is torture. Get it straight
Um, no. That’s murder, you sick little child.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:37 pmThe argument that “it’s not torture because we do it to our own people” is utter bullshit, and intelligent people with any sense of integrity to the truth would never make it.
Why is it still torture even though we subject our own troops to the techniques?
Because we are not trying to extract information from our own troops. We are training them to be able to withstand the techniques.
The physical process might be the same, but the psychological is completely different. Our troops are not isolated, facing hostile captors. Our troops know that they are undergoing training.
Torture techniques are not, primarily designed to break a captive physically. that’s just part of the process (a “bonus” if you were to ask torture enthusiasts). No, the psychological impact is the real point of the program. And the psychological effects generally last a lifetime, while physical effects can often be repaired.
Just because the damage is psychological does NOT mean it’s not torture. in fact, it pretty much means that it IS.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:38 pmAnd you’re flagged, you disgusting wretch.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:38 pmThis troll is so lame it can’t even be bothered to come up with its own screen name.
it has to purloin the good name of a valued TP regular and shit all over it.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:40 pmright.wing.leftwing Says: Hey brothabill you little shyte – is that you loser?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pmI will say things in my column even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.”
This was on his resume when he applied for work at Fox News.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pmIs waterboarding torture the 183rd time it is done to you?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:44 pmWashington Post disappoints again by allowing Krauthammer to spread propaganda.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:46 pmHow many right-wing whackjobs do you have to put on your staff before they stop referring to your newspaper as liberal news media?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:49 pmActually, I personally don’t think it is cause it’s an absurdity to have to say the United States of America has tortured over 10,000 of its own soldiers because its, you know, it’s had them waterboarded as a part of their training.
Ok, Krauty. I’ll go along with your line of thinking. Approximately 10% of U.S. undergraduate students admit to having committed some sort of intentional self-injury – cutting, burning, etc. – due to depression or anxiety.
Therefore, it’s not torture to slice a prisoner’s skin with a razor blade or burn them with cigarettes.
Would you agree?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:49 pmOT: The senate just voted on a Bernie Sanders amendment which establishes a national consumer credit usury rate of 15% plus 3% in extra ordinary circumstances…and it failed
WHO DO THESE CORRUPT BASTARDS REPRESENT ANYWAY?
May 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pmUncle Fester Lurks Says:
OT: The senate just voted on a Bernie Sanders amendment which establishes a national consumer credit usury rate of 15% plus 3% in extra ordinary circumstances…and it failed
May 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
__________
THANK GOODNESS SOMEONE IS LOOKING OUT FOR THOSE POOR, POOR CREDIT CARD COMPANIES!!!!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pmBernie Sanders amendment uses the same 15% interest rate charged that credit unions charge, but these evil, corrupt sold out shills for the banksters don’t think banks should charge the same as credit unions….@#$%@%#@%^!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pmAh, the lengths these righties will go to rather than admit they were wrong.
My seemingly-errant pronouncements were written under the guise of my alter-ego, Kraut Charliehammer, who interjects now and then, to give my writing a neato complexity!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pmCT…I am soooooooooooo #%$@ing furious right now. Screw our government! Maybe some of the wacko’s on the far right are correct, maybe we do need a revolution to take back our government!
May 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pmi love that he says he wants to get away from the semantic argument, but says that he thinks its unfair to say we’ve tortured our own soldiers because they encounter waterboarding in training.
there are those pesky semantics. no one thinks that its torture if you willingly submit to waterboarding as part of a training session meant to simulate torture.
the only semantic argument put forward there is twisting s.e.r.e training to be torturing our own soldiers.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:56 pmWow. Someone really needs to take these wingnuts aside and slap some sense into their thick heads.
Here is some info for you wingnuts. The REASON that special forces and certain troops are waterboarded as part of their training is EXACTLY BECAUSE IT IS TORTURE. They are being trained to know and understand torture so that if it ever happens to them, they can hopefully better resist it.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:57 pmBar…..talking to yourself again? I’m here for your entertainment. I consider my participation in this forum public service. I find it humorous that there are serious blogers, here and who knows why, debating my insane rants as if they were real…….my study is on going….
May 13th, 2009 at 4:59 pm“open up your fruitcage” why don’t you the Mr. Krauthammer
May 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pmWhere is Alan Alda when you need a good joke emphasizing the name “Charles”, using three different phrasings for elitism and what a mouthpiece is?
May 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pm“Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty.”
What a load of BS. He is trying to tell us that our military DOES NOT TAKE conscientious objectors into the war theatre. I remember a time when the military didn’t give a damn what a person’s beliefs [and especially thoughts] were and when you were drafted, GD you did as you were told or you would face a courts martial. So what the hell is he [charles] trying to hand us with this crap?
Furthermore, I am sick of all the EXCUSES these thugs continue to dream up – well if it works, well if we can’t find out any other way, well if we have doctors present, well if the prez does it, it’s not illegal, etc. Who do they think they are that any excuse will work and therefore laws, values and morals don’t even enter into the discussion. BITE ME!
May 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pmHow crass and ridiculous it is for some DC desk jockey to write opinions about what he thinks is torture and is not torture.
People who have actually been through SERE (Jesse Ventura) and those that have administered it have all said: IT IS TORTURE.
Now, I’ll take the opinion of those in the SEALS and from the SERE program over a DC insider like Krauthammer ANY DAY.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pmI can’t believe how these unempathetic authoritarians have finally discovered nuance and grey area on the issue of torture. What creeps.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pmThe idea that people on the right still don’t understand what SERE is is beyond me. We do torture our Navy SEALS. We do it because we want them to be able to withstand war crimes should they be captured. This is not rocket science.
Police investigators who are trying to catch a pedophile may end up viewing some child pornography. That does not mean that they themselves are guilty of viewing child pornography. The law recognizes a special role of the police force and prosecutors.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:07 pmYou gotta in some way admire ol’ Slappy’s willingness to throw every comment he’s ever made here under the bus, just to pretend that some of us here have “taken the bait”.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:07 pmThat Dennis Miller is such a card, asking the wheel-chair bound Cabbage-mallet where he “stands” on the issue…
Though I suppose he couldn’t really ask him where he ’sits.’
May 13th, 2009 at 5:13 pmThis is the same crowd who wants a no-nonsense Judge on the Supreme Court who will enforce the law rather than interpret it.
Hey, gang: Torture is illegal.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:20 pmright.wing.leftwing Says:
Your just jealous
May 13th, 2009 at 5:20 pmKrautHeimer has all the gravitas of a cartoon character.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pmWhere did he rent that upper lip?
J*sus F***ing Chr*st! Doesn’t any one in this stupid country believe in truth and honesty anymore? Have we become a nation of whores and liars. What happened to the country in which we were taught to believe in Truth, Justice and the American Way Oh,yeah, now I remember that was Superman. I guess we have always been a nation of liars. Speaking as one frustrated American I am sick of this sh*t.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:40 pmSlappyBastinado:
May 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pmAny chance of getting an overview of your research. A simple abstract would do? Maybe some links to earlier work? I too am a student of these matters although with a more refined approach it seems. What are your fundamental assumptions and hypotheses you seek to illuminate?
Using that logic, I guess taser shocks are harmless as well,
since many law enforcement recruits voluntarily receive taser
shocks as part of their training.
Never mind all those people killed after being tasered.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:52 pmThus since waterboarding isn’t torture, we need to immediately pardon all of the Japanese soldiers from WWII who were convicted of “torture” and expunge their criminal records.
We can send Dick and Liz Cheney as ambassadors to Japan to formally apologize.
May 13th, 2009 at 6:18 pmActually, I personally don’t think it is cause it’s an absurdity to have to say the United States of America has tortured over 10,000 of its own soldiers because its, you know, it’s had them waterboarded as a part of their training. That’s an absurd sentence.
********************************************************
Krauthammer is merely falling back on the flimsy and flawed argument which the Right has been using in order to defend waterboarding…namely, that waterboarding can’t be torture since it’s something that the United States does to its own soldiers as part of SERE training. As has been debated on this site before, this argument is fatally flawed because it all too conveniently glosses over two basic facts:
1) In the aftermath of WWII, waterboarding was included among the practices which the United States government condemned as torture when practiced by members of the Japanese military against US prisoners of war. If waterboarding qualifies as torture — either legally or logically — when our enemies inflict it on our soldiers, it likewise qualifies as such when we do it to theirs. Any attempt to suggest that it’s not torture when we do it because we’re The Good Guys(TM) is nothing more than an exercise in self-justification.
2) There’s at least some difference between willingly putting oneself in the hands of people whom you have reason to believe you can trust and giving your informed consent to a stressful, painful or even potentially traumatic procedure as part of special training (such as in the case of SERE) — and being forcibly subjected against your will without any preparation to the same procedure by people whom you have no reason to believe you can trust, people who are inflicting stress and trauma on you in an attempt to discover what information you might have (if any!) which they can use. Everyone who has personally experienced the procedure — including former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura — says that they believe waterboarding is torture. Therefore, it is not entirely an “absurd sentence” to say that the US government tortures its own soldiers since this is essentially true — regardless of whether it’s pleasant or politically expedient to admit or not. However, it’s nevertheless an experience to which the soldiers have consented of their own free will to undergo because they know that a foreign enemy which succeeded in capturing them in time of war might very well use the procedure against them.
May 13th, 2009 at 6:22 pmSlappy:
I find it humorous that there are serious blogers, here and who knows why, debating my insane rants as if they were real…….my study is on going….
Your therapist says the same thing.
With a name like barfly, you consider me serious? I just have fun poking holes in your badly-constructed assertions.
May 13th, 2009 at 6:26 pmThis just in from Captain “Integrity” Man…
Sheesh…
May 13th, 2009 at 7:02 pmSlappy, you just keep slapping while you study. Maybe you will get an epiphany.
Has to be better than the rash.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:07 pmTorture is torture. The semantics of the argument are getting ridiculous. I can’t imagine how many people are putting their reputations on the line in defense of torture. Krauthammer’s comment are a good example. The degree to which he minced the English language is disgusting.
The American people need the complete, unabridged story, and let the chips fall where they will.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:13 pmWe know what actually happened. Should it have been done and did it work? Those are the only important questions.
First of all, we don’t know what happened. The rest is just shoddy rationalization.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:16 pmI wonder if he was forced to quit psychiatry as a profession with this kind of “ethics.” Whatever the reason, the mental health of the country is the beneficiary of his non-participation. Can you imagine the mayhem he would create?
May 13th, 2009 at 8:28 pm“If you can’t mean what you say, you can’t say what you mean!”
May 13th, 2009 at 8:46 pmgood very good
Hikaye
May 13th, 2009 at 9:10 pmHikayeler
Hosting
I just had a thought…since Krauthammer has admitted that not everything he says in his column is true, what reason does Dennis Miller necessarily have to believe that anything he says on television is true? Miller may want to believe that Krauthammer is telling the truth now, because he’s saying what Miller wants to hear — but wanting to believe that something’s true is not enough to make it so (the last eight years ought to have given the Republicans more than enough proof of that). Once it becomes apparent that someone has lied — particularly if the person lied purely out of self-interest, as is likely to have been the case here — it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible to trust and rely upon that person, because there’s no way to know for certain when s/he is telling the truth (if ever). Frankly, it’s enough to make me wonder if Krauthammer might not be trying to hedge his bets and play both sides against the middle — people for whom self-interest is the overriding ethical principle do have a tendency to do that.
That being said, Krauthammer might want to brush up on his Aesop — particularly the fable entitled “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, the motto of which is…
A LIAR WILL NOT BE BELIEVED, EVEN WHEN TELLING THE TRUTH.
…and also the fable titled “The Birds, The Beasts, And The Bat” — the moral of which is…
HE WHO IS NEITHER ONE THING NOR THE OTHER HAS NO FRIENDS.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:21 pmHikaye is way hot but I was less than satisfied by Hikayeler…
May 13th, 2009 at 9:34 pmWell, I’ll tell you what, fellow Americans – let’s open up all the prisons (including the super max prisons) and free all those convicted murderers, robbers, kidnappers, drug dealers, rapists, carjackers, child molesters and cop killers, etc. etc. etc. — because we, as a country, have decided that we “don’t want to look back! We want to look forward!”
So let’s not look back, comrades! We must immediately empty all our prisons, because if we aren’t interested in looking back, these convictions become moot and these prisoners should all be set free!
Let’s not look back – release Charlie Manson! Let’s not look back – release Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker)! Let’s not look back – release the BTK Killer! Release the guy who killed Polly Klaas! Release ‘em all!!! We don’t look back!!
Yes, I’m being incredibly facetious.
But if we as Americans continue to justify our ugly refusal to prosecute the criminals who authorized and carried out the most egregious war crimes ever committed in the history of this nation – then we may as well release every single convicted felon from prison right this minute, because we have lost every shred of moral justification for keeping those people in prison at all…
May 13th, 2009 at 11:11 pmConsidering this is Krauthammer…
May 14th, 2009 at 11:41 amWhat is so surprising?