Hewitt vs O’Donnell
posted at 1:35 pm on May 28, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
If you didn’t get a chance to hear Hugh Hewitt dismantle MS-NBC’s Larry O’Donnell last night, Hugh made sure you have the opportunity today. The entire transcript of the interview appears on his blog, with a link to the podcast of the 35-minute conversation. It’s long, but well worth the time. Here are a couple of highlights:
HH: What was the last book you read about terrorism?
LO’D: The last…I don’t think I’ve read a book about terrorism.
HH: Ever?
LO’D: No.
HH: About al Qaeda?
LO’D: No.
HH: About…how about the mullahs in Iran?
LO’D: No.
HH: I’m just stunned.
LO’D: Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve read Bob Woodward’s books about the accounts inside the Bush administration from what they were doing from the day they got sworn in, okay?
HH: You’ve never read a book about terrorism?
LO’D: There is no, there is absolutely no evidence, and I defy you today, Hugh,
HH: Larry, you’ve never read a book about terrorism?
LO’D: I defy you to point to me, point to me a citation of one memo or one meeting that Dick Cheney was in where he says anything about al Qaeda.
HH: Larry, I’ve got to go lie down. I really do. Do you think you’re a well-informed MSNBC, by MSNBC standards, do you think you’re above the grade of people on that network?
LO’D: That’s a trick question, Hugh.
He never read anything about terrorism? Not in seven-plus years after 9/11, when he works as a political analyst for NBC? That’s a rather amazing admission, but given O’Donnell’s statements, one that only mildly surprises, if that.
Hugh then presses O’Donnell for factual support for one of his statements, and O’Donnell crumbles:
HH: You said people have been prosecuted for exactly this. Did you mean for waterboarding?
LO’D: Yeah.
HH: Who?
LO’D: Well, we’ve done it, you know, this country has prosecuted that, that, torture method before.
HH: When?
LO’D: Um, I don’t know, what’s…I think it is was…umm, I don’t know. I…you know, I’ve…I know that we’ve done it, and I don’t have the research in front of me as to exactly when we’ve prosecuted who for it and which conflict.
In other words, O’Donnell pulled that argument from his nether regions, and Hugh proceeds to school him on mens rea and other legal niceties that O’Donnell apparently didn’t bother to research, either. I guess O’Donnell hasn’t read any law books, either.
Be sure to read the whole interview, and listen to it when you get the chance. It’s better live than on paper.
Update: Here’s one book suggestion for Larry O’Donnell if he wants to start learning about the issues rather than get reamed as he did last night. Anyone have any others?
Blowback
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Mitt Romney.
thirteen28 on May 28, 2009 at 1:40 PM
I heard the whole thing on the radio yesterday.
Why does O’Donnell even have a voice on these issues? He knows absolutely squat.
Daggett on May 28, 2009 at 1:41 PM
I heard it on the radio yesterday- a must listen. O’Donnell was so ridiculously uninformed I thought the entire segment was a joke.
shannonkelly on May 28, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Lesson to be learned:
Liberals will always be liberals for one reason, they don’t have the intellect or capacity for honest discussion. Ever. At least they’re easy to pick out…problem is, you have to have some intelligence to recognize the stupidity. At least half of the American population is either too stupid to recognize it or too lazy to bother trying.
Spiritk9 on May 28, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Did you know that according to Hugh Hewitt *no objective observer* could say that Mitt Romney’s “Freedom Requires Religion For Some Reason” speech wasn’t the greatest speech ever written?
Proud Rino on May 28, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Why would anyone give that dufus any air time at all?
Good for Hugh for confronting him, but I’d just as soon never see his ugly face again.
Bambi on May 28, 2009 at 1:43 PM
He obviously hasn’t been challenged very well in the years he’s been interviewed on TV. You notice that as soon as he has to get out of the abstract and into the real world, through facts, his arguments completely dissolve. As long as he, and his fellow leftists, stay in the abstract, they can harp and harp all day long.
Weebork on May 28, 2009 at 1:45 PM
Does he have to know? From where I sit, the MSM’s can just say, and do as they please, and we’re expected to swallow it. There is no journalistic integrity with them, anymore. It’s all about getting their owner GE, that billions in government contracts.
capejasmine on May 28, 2009 at 1:47 PM
When Hugh challenged him for facts about prosecuting Americans for waterboarding, O’Donnel had nothing. He had to search Wikipedia. And then he came up with an unrelated case and claimed it was about waterboarding.
What a douche.
Daggett on May 28, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Lawrence O’Donnell sucks and shouldn’t be on the air in any capacity. As a result, he fits in pretty well on MSNBC.
Proud Rino on May 28, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Cool. It’s about time liberals are asked the “what do you read” question…
yogi41 on May 28, 2009 at 1:48 PM
thanks for posting it Ed.
youngO on May 28, 2009 at 1:48 PM
He recently said of the Bush Administration prior to 9/11: “they knew terrorists were going to use airliners….”
His nether regions are quite stocked full of facts to suit his needs.
Marcus on May 28, 2009 at 1:48 PM
LO’D: Hugh you are a poopy racist head.
jukin on May 28, 2009 at 1:50 PM
What’s truly sad, is Clintons administration knew about it as well…and did nothing. Yet, never once, did Bush say he inherited this mess. He rolled up his sleeves, and went to work.
Take a lesson, Obama!
capejasmine on May 28, 2009 at 1:50 PM
O’Donnell sounds dumber than Princess Caroline and that is a pretty low bar to go under.
MB4 on May 28, 2009 at 1:50 PM
That’s stupid. And it’s all your fault.
bluelightbrigade on May 28, 2009 at 1:50 PM
It seemed like my post just disappeared
I don’t know why anyone would give this dufus any air time at all. He is the biggest looser, looser, looser (as he likes to scream and not let anyone get a word in). Good for Hugh, if he had to have him, for taking him down..
Bambi on May 28, 2009 at 1:51 PM
I always go to Lawrence O’Donnell for a detailed, logical explanation of things, if I can’t find anything from Rosie O’Donnell.
Star20 on May 28, 2009 at 1:51 PM
This brings to mind my disdain for a number of journalists in general. They have a BA from some J-school and think the entire world should hear, and accept as fact, their opinions on law, economics, international relations, etc.
davenp35 on May 28, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Here are some prosecutions for waterboarding:
On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.” The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.
Cases of waterboarding have occurred on U.S. soil, as well. In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 1:52 PM
I bet Mr. O’Donnell thinks Hugh used enhanced interrogation methods on him. This is Hugh at this best, I can’t wait to listen when I get home.
Cindy Munford on May 28, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Silly conservatives trying to alter reality with facts and logic.
elduende on May 28, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Hewitt is one of the best interviewers out there.
His interviews of Jonathan Chait (“I hate George W. Bush”) and Joel Stein (“I don’t support the troops”) and now, Lawrence O’Donnell (“Uhh, I don’t know…what’s….I think it was…I don’t know”) are CLASSIC.
aquaviva on May 28, 2009 at 1:53 PM
I’ve got to hear this.
O’donnel is a real gasbag. One gets the feeling he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. This only confirms it.
therightwinger on May 28, 2009 at 1:54 PM
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people who make observations about things with no deep understanding of the subject matter.
Its fine if as long as your not trying to pass yourself off as a person of note with an opinion that actually matters in public discourse.
But to be someone of NOTE and comment on a terror network with NO knowledge or historical perspective on terror from experts who do know ……please, you cannot be expected to be taken serially but anyone but another un-informed person.
seymour on May 28, 2009 at 1:55 PM
Hugh is the man. My favorite talk show host, followed closely by Dennis Prager.
nickj116 on May 28, 2009 at 1:55 PM
Great job by Hugh. O’Donnell has a brain the size of an Almond.
He is though, at MSNBC standards of education, meaning ZERO.
jencab on May 28, 2009 at 1:55 PM
Well, he didn’t say “no objective observer,” he said that anyone that said Romney’s speech wasn’t “simply magnificent” wasn’t to be trusted as an analyst. You remember that speech – that was the one where he said that freedom required religion. I was going from memory. It was simply something…I don’t know if “magnificent” is the word I’d use…
Proud Rino on May 28, 2009 at 1:56 PM
O’Donnell is my primary backup source after the Mad Hatter.
Cheshire Cat on May 28, 2009 at 2:01 PM
I heard the whole interview yesterday afternoon.
“Stunning ignorance” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Not surprising, thought. I gave copies of Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower and Daniel
Pipes Militant Islam Reaches America to lefty friends as simple gifts, hoping that they would find the books as enlightening as I.
One returned them to me unread with a note that read: “keep your neo-con propaganda”.
It’s depressing. The willful blindness of the Left will be the end of us all.
Bruno Strozek on May 28, 2009 at 2:01 PM
The real shame of it is that O’Donnell is a decent actor.
He should just be an actor. Calling him a lightweight as a political analyst isn’t fair to lightweights.
Kensington on May 28, 2009 at 2:02 PM
I’m not sure what’s worse…being a lying gasbag who makes stuff up or a simple gasbag who knows just enough to talk himself into a corner (O’Donnell in this case). In the time he was hemming and hawing for an example I pulled the same two instances of waterboarding prosecutions as bnelson44 did.
O’Donnell managed to find prosecutions that appear to be for some other interrogation procedure. He’s really not someone to be taken seriously…perfect for MSNBC.
tbradshaw on May 28, 2009 at 2:03 PM
And yet Hewitt throttled O’Donnell 6 ways to Sunday.
lol.
MB4 on May 28, 2009 at 2:04 PM
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Thanks for the examples but why don’t you forward that link to Hugh Hewitt? He’s the one who can’t research.
Vera71 on May 28, 2009 at 2:05 PM
So what? He read a book about reporting about terrorism.
Well, technically, it was about reporting on what Republicans are doing about terrorism, and why it’s always wrong.
But that’s all any responsible journalist could ever need to know.
logis on May 28, 2009 at 2:05 PM
Is that supposed to be a “gotcha?”
D2Boston on May 28, 2009 at 2:05 PM
I’m sure he did. Lawrence O’Donnell is a moron.
Proud Rino on May 28, 2009 at 2:06 PM
Next time give them “Fighting Terrorism” by Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a small book, it’s full of nice little easily understood words. Bibi was trying to make it easy on people.
I asked someone who was pontificating to me on terrorism one simple question: Who is Bashir Assad?
Naturally he didn’t know. I told him that until he could tell me who that is and why it’s important to know his name in the fight against terrorism, he could keep his naive little opinion to himself…..
mjk on May 28, 2009 at 2:08 PM
Other books that the esteemed Mr. O’Donnell might consider would be Inside the Jihad by Omar Nasiri, or maybe Understanding Terror Networks, by retired FSO and Psychiatrist Marc Sageman (which contains probably the best breakdown of the entire Salafi jihad network and backstory that I’ve read). I wouldn’t hold my breath, though. I struggle to envision Mr. O’Donnell’s curiosity being tremendously piqued at this point…
jakeller74 on May 28, 2009 at 2:09 PM
bnelson – Was that the same link that stated that Teddy Roosevelt supported waterboarding?
Some support the use of waterboarding and some don’t. It is all a matter of your political ideology. I’m right and you’re wrong.
Vince on May 28, 2009 at 2:09 PM
Darwin blames unintelligent design.
God blames devolution.
MB4 on May 28, 2009 at 2:10 PM
Another O’Donnell meltdown is coming to a TV screen near you soon.
booter on May 28, 2009 at 2:10 PM
This rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion my adversaries are insane.
- Mark Twain
MB4 on May 28, 2009 at 2:12 PM
Katy Couric needs to be asked, and asked, and asked again. She did it to Sarah Palin.
Right_of_Attila on May 28, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Hugh made the challenge as if there were no people prosecuted. Well there were.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 2:18 PM
I posted about this last week on my local paper’s blog in response to an editor’s statement that not allowing terrorists to be placed in American prisions was “idiotic.” I told him what was really idiotic was that so few Americans had bothered to study Islam and the issues surrounding terrorism since 9/11. He refused to allow my post. Big surprise. I noticed Robert Spencer was on Fox News the other day talking about “Prislam.” I was pleasantly surprised to see him on Fox. Even Fox has treated the terrorism issue with kid gloves and Spencer has not been invited to speak very often.
Connie on May 28, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Sure. But my point was that Hugh was wrong in inferring there were never any prosecutions for water boarding, there were.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 2:20 PM
Suggested readings – as Hewitt mentioned, the Looming Tower is an excellent overview of al-qaeda ideology.
Also Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong is excellent. Anything by Lewis since he’s such a terrific prose writer.
Fouad Ajami’s works are excellent especially his rejoinder to Huntingont’s clash of civilization argument – Ajami argued that nation states or state actors are more important than civilizations/cultural interests.
Paul Berman, a liberal hawk, has writtent some good stuff albeit from a leftist point of view.
It is astonishing that O’Donnell hasn’t apparently read anything on these topics.
SteveMG on May 28, 2009 at 2:25 PM
By the way, I just purchased Andrew Kagan’s “The Last Thing I Remember” for my grandson and I’m giving him two Brad Thor novels, as well as 3 Ollie North books from our bookshelves. He’s 16 and thinks he wants to teach history. I want to give him an interesting way to learn some of it before he has a chance to be indoctrinated by leftist professors or MSNBC.
Connie on May 28, 2009 at 2:27 PM
Someone bring this lady a teleprompter STAT!!!!
FontanaConservative on May 28, 2009 at 2:28 PM
What a dunce! And, he looks like an evil Conan O’Brien. That’s not a winning combination, but MSNBC likes the twerp.
Hate MSNBC, but I did stop by as I channel surfed yesterday just in time to see Matthews grilling Burris. Must admit that it was definitely entertaining.
joedoe on May 28, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Loud mouth Larry O’Donnell, is a classical MSNBC turd for brains, left wing ideologue. His mommy must have a hard time dressing him, and making sure his note is pinned on his sweater in the morning.
Suggestion to MSNBC CEOs: Fire all of your left-wing nut cases like Pissy Crissy, Keith Overbite, O’Donnell, Shyster, including Andrea Mitchell that are dragging your network down. Next, see if you can steal a few good blond chicks from FOX News, then watch your viewer ratings skyrocket. Because a few FOX Foxes are way better than the dozen bozos you have now.
byteshredder on May 28, 2009 at 2:31 PM
Hey you guys stole my personal motto!
petunia on May 28, 2009 at 2:32 PM
Hugh got it all wrong.
O’Donnell did read a book about the enemy. It is just that the Left has identified a different enemy than the rest of us…It was the Bush White House, not the “Religion of Peace” tm…
Spike72AFA on May 28, 2009 at 2:32 PM
I actually found that interesting too. Hugh should have been better informed himself. But then he wouldn’t have dominated the conversation of boldly.
Anything that shows O’Donnel for the idiot that he is it okay with me.
Hugh would probably say his real point was made perfectly. Water boarding was just the vehicle he used to get there.
petunia on May 28, 2009 at 2:35 PM
That’s embarrassingly bad.
Bob's Kid on May 28, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Wonderful. Hugh is wonderful.
John the Libertarian on May 28, 2009 at 2:38 PM
I haven’t read Cucullu’s book, but I read a number of articles he wrote for Front Page mag and they are just devastating for the close GITMO crowd.
His work should be required reading for every member of Congress and White House employee.
Buy Danish on May 28, 2009 at 2:42 PM
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 2:20 PM
petunia on May 28, 2009 at 2:35 PM
Maybe it was just more proof that Mr. O’Donnell was talking out of his hat. The whole interview was an attempt to show how little Mr. O’Donnell had prepared for his statment, intervies and apparently his actual job.
Cindy Munford on May 28, 2009 at 2:42 PM
O’Donnell’s a POS. Always has been, always will be.
He thinks being a loud rude blowhard makes him right.
He’s used to shouting down Joke Scarburrow.
roninacreage on May 28, 2009 at 2:43 PM
I listened to this on Hugh’s pod cast. He was asked why he thought Cheney did not keep us safe and his response was to ask what specific acts Cheney did to keep us safe before Sept 10th. In other words all that Cheney did after Sept 11th did not count at making us safe because he did nothing before 9/11.
This guy is an idiot.
jsulman on May 28, 2009 at 2:43 PM
bnelson44: You should not infer what other people are inferring. That is why there are so many misunderstandings.
I am inferring that liberals do not care about the military but am I correct?
Vince on May 28, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Actually, if you listen to the audio, you’ll see that he admits there might have been prosecutions but that his qualm was with Larry making crap up without actually knowing what he’s talking about.
Being right by accident and by design are two different things.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Your source would seem far more impartial if it didn’t lump waterboarding in with “the water cure” and other water torture devises that differ greatly from waterboarding.
Kinda hard to trust them when they call something waterboarding and claim someone was prosecuted for that (and that alone, as opposed to kidnapping or assault).
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 2:50 PM
There seems to be desperate attempts by opponents of water boarding to justify their stance through indirect arguments like: association – bad people did it in th past so it is wrong. Or the authoritative: It is banned by others therefore it is wrong. These would be alright as supportive evidence strengthening a good basic argument, but with out the basis they are weak and unconvincing.
.
The basic question of is it a terrible method or not is clearly answered no, since no harm is done and incredibly valuable benefit from important info can be gained. Since opponents know the basic question in not in their favor, they continue to throw out these auxiliary arguments instead.
.
Bad people have water boarded and also invented medicines that save. People have passed laws against water boarding and also interracial marriage. These arguments prove nothing.
.
Either the method is too terrible for the benefit or not, no matter what you call it, who used it, or who banned it.
.
The facts are that it is harmless, and very useful. Those facts make it a miracle when needed, which we would be hoping to invent, if it did not already exist.
.
These facts are also not difficult to prove or accept if you are honest and unbiased.
bagoh20 on May 28, 2009 at 2:51 PM
Was he wearing his hat on his *ss?
Kensington on May 28, 2009 at 2:53 PM
This is precisely why MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann only invites those that agree with him on his program. He’s afraid that he would get schooled and look like the fool he is and he probably knows he’d easily lose such a debate and would not handle it well, judging by his past behavior.
OxyCon on May 28, 2009 at 2:59 PM
OK, well it’s pretty clear why they were prosecuted and why anyone who participated in waterboarding in this most recent instance would not be prosecuted. I trust you realize those prosecutions are irrelevant to current events or comparisons and why.
D2Boston on May 28, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Hey Larry O’Dingbat:
It is not technically “Terrorism for Dummies;” but it is close.
Branch Rickey on May 28, 2009 at 3:04 PM
Sure but that is OT. Hugh was engaging in “gocha journalism” Something we normally condem around here. And Hugh was wrong in insinuating that no one was ever prosecuted for water boarding. Hugh owes O’Donnell an apology.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:05 PM
Larry O’Donnell … Norah O’Donnell … MSNBC talking heads that had their butts handed to them. Larry by Hugh Hewitt and Norah by Liz Cheney.
If you thought Hewitt dismantled Larry, you should have seen Liz Cheney leave Norah in ashes.
jdflorida on May 28, 2009 at 3:10 PM
Except he wasn’t insinuating that at all. He said during the interview that the point was never about whether or not waterboarders have been prosecuted but about whether or not Larry knew that when he brought it up.
Obviously, Larry was making it up, having casually heard someone else say it without checking up on it.
That was the point.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 3:10 PM
Why yes, yes he was!!
Cindy Munford on May 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM
Wait right here, I am sure it’s coming any minute.
Cindy Munford on May 28, 2009 at 3:12 PM
I agree, but that is done so often, it is hard to find a source that doesn’t do that. Anyway, what I quoted was water boarding (they have a picture of the Vietnam instance, and a pretty good description of the TX incident).
Here are some other sources:
In 1968, a US soldier from the 1st Cavalry Division was documented as having waterboarded a Vietnamese soldier under interrogation. The event was photographed and appeared on the front page of the Washington Post on Jan. 21, 1968. The article stated that waterboarding “induces a fleeting sense of suffocation and drowning which is calculated to make a suspect talk…The water technique is said to be in fairly common use among Allied troops in Vietnam.”
The Soldier (name unavailable) was court-martialed on Feb. 28, 1968. The outcome of the court-martial was a conviction.
Sources:
- “Interogation,” Washington Post, Jan. 21, 1968.
- Weiner, Eric. “Waterboarding: A Tortured History,” NPR, Nov. 3, 2007.
- Rejali, Darius. Torture and Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2007.
In 1983, James Parker (Texas Sheriff for San Jacinto County) and three of his deputies were charged by the Department of Justice with committing torture because of their use of water torture on prisoners. The four were convicted of “water torture,” which was upheld on appeal. They were sentenced to 10 years each. The case name was United States v. Parker et al.
In the indictment the officers were charged with subjecting prisoners to “a suffocating ‘water torture’ ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.”
Here is a court decision in an appeal of the case for one of the defendents who said he didn’t instruct the tormentors to torture. It explains the original case:
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/744/744.F2d.1124.83-2675.html
Sources:
- “Around The Nation; Texas Sheriff Is Guilty of Torturing Prisoners,” The New York Times, Mar. 20, 1983.
- Wallach, Evan. “Drop By Drop: Forgetting The History of Water Torture In U.S. Courts,” The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 2007.
- Wallach, Evan. “Waterboarding used to be a Crime,” Washington Post, Nov. 4, 2007.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:15 PM
Reminds me of the time the late, great Cathy Seipp almost made O’Donnell’s head explode. I think it was on the Dennis Miller show a few years ago.
stoutcat on May 28, 2009 at 3:16 PM
Except he wasn’t insinuating that at all. He said during the interview that the point was never about whether or not
I listened to the interview live yesterday. IMHO, Hugh was insinuating there were no prosecutions, and Hugh was wrong. He needs to own up on that.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:17 PM
I’m sorry, what? Hugh was showing that O’Donnell knows shite-all about what he’s talking about. That’s it. O’donnell was pulling “facts” out of his arse and people are wont to do when they are too lazy and stupid to actually read and research events.
I don’t give a tiny little crap about whether waterboarding is torture or not. I just love the fact that people pull facts out of their arse and you’re DEFENDING their rights to be stupid as shiite.
mjk on May 28, 2009 at 3:19 PM
What was obvious to me when I listened to the interview was that Larry remembered something about a reference to the cases in the past and couldn’t pin point it. Larry was right, there were cases. Hugh was wrong to play “gotcha” with him.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:20 PM
That’s not waterboarding. That is something else altogether.
The first one sounds correct, and I saw the picture already.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Yeah, I thought about that, too. In fact, I was going to say that O’Donnell seems affable enough based on his self-deprecating demeanor with Hewitt until I remembered Cathy Seipp and what a great, neck-vein-bursting bully he likes to be on TV. What a jerk!
Kensington on May 28, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Well, O’Donnell was the guy who was right in this case, not Hugh.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:21 PM
Lefties: the ignorant led by the dishonest.
EnglishMike on May 28, 2009 at 3:21 PM
The al-Qaeda Reader, by Raymond Ibrahim. Essential for understanding our enemies and the nature of the jihad.
Of course, O’Donnell would probably deny there even is a jihad….
irishspy on May 28, 2009 at 3:22 PM
Seems to me they were both right: There have been prosecutions and convictions (although involving LAWFUL combatants or citizens) AND O’Donnell made it up because he did not know of them and in fact KNOWS very little about his subject of analysis (according to himself). He can get lucky about a particular claim though if only technically.
bagoh20 on May 28, 2009 at 3:23 PM
Larry the Dickeater threw that nonsense at Liz Cheney, as well, the bit about the U.S. prosecuting someone, somewhere for waterboarding some unspecified someone. Liz seemed to allow that we had, but that in fact the prosecution was for some other action, and not in fact for waterboarding.
Figures that he didn’t even know what he was talking about. I guess that’s why he just starts yelling during every performance he gives. What a little twit.
Jaibones on May 28, 2009 at 3:26 PM
That’s not waterboarding. That is something else altogether.The first one sounds correct, and I saw the picture already.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Gregg Magee, a deputy sheriff who testified against Sheriff Parker and three of the deputies said he witnessed Harkless being handcuffed to a chair by Parker and then getting “the water treatment.”
“A towel was draped over his head,” Magee said, according to court documents. “He was pulled back in the chair and water was poured over the towel.”
Harkless said he thought he was “going to be strangled to death,” adding: “I couldn’t breathe.”
That’s water boarding
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Esthier, oops didn’t mean to strike your quote out.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:28 PM
Right about what? HH asked him to support his allegation, and had no effing idea what he was talking about. Are you going with the blind pig theory?
Jaibones on May 28, 2009 at 3:28 PM
He didn’t. He asked him point blank if he knew of any cases, and Larry looked like an idiot. I never got the impression that he’d done any research on it.
And later in the interview, Larry even pulls up a wiki page (one that Hugh disputes after the interview is over) and while talking about it, Hugh goes further into his point about how he obviously didn’t know about these cases before, during his debate with Liz, which was the whole point of him asking that.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 3:28 PM
Yeah I read it, but note this part:
This generally included placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.”
That’s not waterboarding. There are many that are very close and yet the affects are drastically different.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Not a problem. It’s very close to the quote button.
Esthier on May 28, 2009 at 3:31 PM
The effects of waterboarding are a sense of drowning or suffocating.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:37 PM
Right that there were prosecutions in the past on water boarding. I am going with the theory that he read or heard it someplace. Hugh apparently didn’t, even with all the books he has read :-)
I’m not a fan of Larry’s and I usually enjoy listening to Hugh. But I don’t like “gotcha” interviewing, no matter who does it.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:40 PM
bnelson44,
Is the actual method the same in any of the cases you’ve cited?
(hint: no.)
Karl on May 28, 2009 at 3:45 PM
Thank you for the suggestion, but I don’t think they would read it either.
I used to work in the mental health field, so I believe the frameworks of Denial and Displacement as defenses seem to apply best, i.e. – 9/11 was about America Bad! They don’t really want to kill a good liberal like me, I’ll only be targeted if I am standing next to an Evil Neo-Con when the truck bomb explodes! or Bushilter is the enemy! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Bushitler & Darth Cheney!
It’s easier to deny or displace than confront the reality of people wanting to kill you, particularly for religious/political reasons. In Leftyland, “enemys” like the GOP or Big Business or Sarah Palin are “safe” repositories of displacement. They play by polite rules (right, John McCain?)
Confronting the reality presented by the jihadists scares the piss out of them, so better to bury their heads in the sand and Hope and Change it all away.
Bruno Strozek on May 28, 2009 at 3:47 PM
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:40 PM
A journalist of O’D's caliber should know better than to state “facts” without being able to provide his source. Otherwise, he just looks like a stammering fool.
ladyingray on May 28, 2009 at 3:49 PM
I only cited 2 cases. And yes, the method is the same in the 2 cases. The method is: You cover the face with a cloth and you apply water to the cloth.
This isn’t rocket science.
bnelson44 on May 28, 2009 at 3:52 PM
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