ABOUT FIRST READ

First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Detainee bill loses in committee

Posted: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 3:40 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: , ,

From NBC's Mike Viqueira
The House Judiciary Committee this afternoon has voted against the terrorist detainee bill favored by President Bush and most Republicans. But this doesn't mean that the bill is dead in the House. The measure has been reported out of committee "unfavorably" -- the vote was 20 against and 17 in favor -- but it still heads to the House floor where passage by the entire body is expected next week. Recall that the same bill passed the House Armed Services Committee by a vote of 52-8 last week. The Judiciary Committee, however, is much more polarized ideologically.

Still, three Republicans defied the leadership and the president in the committee vote. They are Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Bob Inglis of South Carolina, and Jeff Flake of Arizona (who has become a McCain-like maverick).

MAIN PAGE

Email this EMAIL THIS

Comments

Al Quaida wasn't even present in Iraq before Bush started his war.  It's not surprising they find it a fruitful field for recruiting now. 13,000 detainees remain in American prisons in Iraq, and almost 18,700 Iraqi detainees have been released since June 2004. Those released indicate their incarceration was a living hell and state that they hate the U.S. because of the way they were treated. If each of these detainees has one father, one brother, and one son, that would be over 120,000 potential insurgents and terrorists Bush's illegal prisons and interrogation policies have created.
That's only the Supreme Court and the Congress - no real obstacle for the freedom and democracy-loving BushCo administration - they'll just do it anyway.

Long may freedom reign!
The Bush poster boy for torture turns out to be a joke! No useful information was obtained! U.S. intelligence officers say they have little—if any—evidence that useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally understood to be torture. It is clear, for instance, that Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. His interrogators even threatened to go after his family. (KSM reportedly shrugged off the threat to his family—he would meet them in heaven, he said.) KSM did reveal some names and plots. But they haven’t panned out as all that threatening: one such plot was a plan by an Al Qaeda operative to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge—with a blow torch. Intelligence officials could never be sure if KSM was holding back on more serious threats, or just didn’t know of any. The President must be dellusional he he thinks Al Qaida was going to cut down the Brookyn Bridge. Give me a break! This is his prime example of why torture is needed?
John Kerry sends a mass email that "The swiftboats are comin', the swiftboats are comin'!!!"  The DNC has allowed this waste of cyberspace because the pentultimate lesson has never sunk in:  When the GOP wants us to turn our focus away from the real problems, they'll find a way.

We shouldn't be surprised that a bill breaking the Geneva Conventions and allowing for torture to be made legal--and retroactively, so no one will be thrown in the brig while reports begin to stream out of Iraq on how heinous the treatment has been, is going to pass.

Leopards don't change their spots, and Republicans don't change their allegiance.  McCain will never call himself a "Democratic Republican".  He's a good man, and a bridge builder between the DNC and GOP, but when it comes down to it, there will be a law passed allowing Bush to beat the soul out of a detainee.

I just hope McCain and friends have the soul beaten out of them when they look down at their hands and see the blood they've caused to be shed...


SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=4479

First Read e-mail alerts


Sign up for First Read alerts
The first place for key political news and analysis

Syndicate This Site

Add First Read to your news reader:
live.com xml
myyahoo msn
bloglines newsgator
google