HOPELESS HARLEY

I’ve mentioned Harley Sorensen before here on the corner. His writing style is something I call “shotgun”. A shotgun writing style a scattered, point after point, often with no connections, litany of thoughts and ideas. And sure enough, old Harley has done it again.

The premise is George Bush and his posse are bad. But, as I said he never states that. Harley starts off his laundry list by surmising that politicians publicly “accept responsibility” and then go on with their lives, not really doing anything than just saying the words.

“Reno had learned from Reagan. Rumsfeld on Friday demonstrated he has learned from both. Publicly "taking responsibility" for misdeeds or errors has become an acceptable way to turn down the heat.”

This is actually a fair point and one he could have written a thoughtful piece on, but he doesn’t, he just veers off to another Bush attack.

But wait, don’t we have a candidate now that NEVER takes responsibility? He doesn’t fall down on the slopes, it was the secret service agent. He doesn’t actually say what he says on the campaign trail, it’s always those darned speechwriters. And didn’t he vote for the $87 billion before voting against it? What about that, Harley?

Keeping with the “Bush/Rumsfeld are responsible for everything bad” theme, we get:

“President George W. Bush, a one-time cheerleader at Yale, has been the primary cheerleader for abuse against our perceived enemies.

He has declared Iraq, Iran and North Korea as evil. In his opinion, Iraqis who continue to fight against the invaders of their country are "evil-doers." (Rumsfeld likes to call them "dead-enders.")”

Funny, Harley never addresses the idea that regimes that kill, rape and starve their own people might actually be evil.

“Given the national fear and anger, and the loathing of our enemies, all encouraged by the Bush administration, it is not in the least surprising that under trained service men and women abuse helpless prisoners.”

Ah, of course, it’s George Bush who made those guards abuse the prisoners. I should have known it. I bet Karl Rove is somehow involved, damn him!

Sorensen then regales us with his own time in the prisoner/guard relationship with stories from his time in the Army during the Korean war. He also brings up the famous Stanford experiment where students played out guard/prisoner relationships and things went very wrong, very fast. His point, what little there is, seems to be that when the military uses under trained people in prison situations, bad things can happen.

“What Zimbardo's work demonstrates is that anyone charged with taking care of prisoners must be well-trained for the job.”

That is, again, another fair point and worthy of consideration, but Harley sails on past it. I wonder if that’s because the blame (dare I say, responsibility?) of an under trained military might fall on the shoulders of Bill Clinton, who spent his entire presidency gutting the military? I haven’t seen this avenue explored, but it's one I've been thinking about.

Wrapping up the “Bush is evil” theme, we get this:

“What the exposure of our atrocities also teaches is that our leadership has gone against traditional American beliefs. One of our claims to respect has been our simple decency. George W. Bush's bellicose rhetoric, echoed by others in his administration, goes against our ideals.

Bush claims to be a disciple of the Christian Prince of Peace, and he commonly exhorts the God of Love, yet the rest of his rhetoric seems to belie those beliefs. Someone should point out to Bush the difference between a moral man and a moralistic one.

And Rumsfeld, who admits responsibility for war crimes, should accept that responsibility. He should return to civilian life. “

This bit is just full of little nuggets of stupidity. Firstly, the abuse is called “atrocities”, in an attempt to morally equate scaring people with feeding them, alive, to dogs and gassing villages. Harley, they are not equal. One is mean, the other is atrocious.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think Harley then goes on to say Bush isn’t decent and mocks his faith. Liberals just can't stand the idea that someone might be religious. The moral/moralistic bit is just too ironic for words.

Anyway, Harley thinks everything bad is Bush’s fault, including the isolated acts of a bunch of guards, a significant number who seem to be women. Hmmm, what does that say? We'll get into that later. Of course, everything good done by the soldiers is probably just done in spite of Bush.