Well, the Repub ilk can always bring in Alan Keyes.
LMAO.

How about Ann Coultergiest,Sean the Pansy,Bill Loofah Oreaallly,how about the nutty guy from Sprinfied who always moans about Durbin? Maybe Babs Olsen?

Loon,

Don't forget Jack Ryan.

Wow - federally funded elections; what a dog of an idea. Woof!

Just think of it. The tax dollars taken from all you Democrats could be siphoned from valuable governmental functions just to support the likes of Tom Tancredo, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney or John McCain in their campaigns for office. What is so good about that, folks? To me, it would be about as bad as knowing that my tax dollars were spent supporting Dennis Kucinich or Hillary Clinton.

If spending money on a candidate in a race is a form of political "speech," then taking tax dollars to spend on candidates would constitute forced "speech" with which the taxpayer/donor might very well violently disagree. There is something ugly and perverse about that idea. Forced speech has always been anathema because it violates the individual's right to conscience. Federal funding for campaigns violates this principle.

Since the Republics have spent most of the week trashing Patrick Fitzegerald in order to defend the Libby commutation, I guess he's out as an option for them.

Maybe they can ask Coach Ditka again.

Loon,

Babs Olsen is dead, but I'll bet she still votes Republican. :-)

Doug,

Please explain how Jack Ryan can be compared to the worst of the right-wingers? Last I knew, Jacks only fault was going into a "legal" sex club, in Europe, with another "consenting" adult. A fact that was only brought out in a bitter divorce, and then "sealed", until a liberal newspaper sued to have those private documents opened. Plus, the IL Republicans dumbed Jack, Jack didn't bow out on his own. Remains to be seen if he could've beaten Obama. And if not for that, Obama would be a no-one right now, instead of the darling of the left. Funny how a quick spur of the moment decision on a street corner in Europe changed the course of two lives.

Tony,
I'm sure they'll bring in that Dirken guy again to once more try to confuse older voters. What a party of ideas, those IL Republics are!!

Good call Jethro.

We probably haven't seen the last of Helicopter Jim Oberweis either. (Unfortunately)

I wonder if Boy Wonder Mark Kirk is going to challenge Durbin??

Troy,

My reference to Ryan was that he was an also ran candidate.

Please explain why the GOP should even run anyone of substance against Durbin? Seems to me that Sen. Obama has never really cared for his present title and wants to get out of Ill as fast as possible. And that means a Senate seat will open up very soon. And that leaves top GOP contenders in Illinois with a tough choice: Should I run against whatever crackpot crony Blago appoints to fill the Senate seat? Or should I run against the criminal with perfect hair for the guv's mansion? Decisions, decisions. For that matter, it's the only thing holding Fitzgerald back from indicting Blago. If he does, it ends his chances to run for Guv, since you can't both remove a man from the office and then take his chair. It just looks bad.

The Illinois GOP is a sad shape, but I hope they find a canidate and the ad they should run over and over again is that of Seantor Durbin:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said. "Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

I am sorry if anything I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.

And his pathetic apology:

"I am also sorry IF (MY EMPHASIS) anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. ... I never ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apology," Durbin said, choking on his words.

Terry-

Please read this article from the Washington Post and then tell me you are proud, as an American, of this administrations policies on torture.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_enevelope_on_presi/

Tell me you are proud that this administration has defined torture to only be actions that cause suffering "equivalent in intensity" to the pain of "organ failure ..... or even death."

Then tell me who should be the target of your criticism, Snator Durbin, who criticised these very same actions with a poorly thought our analogy, or this administration for making torture the policy of the United States of America.

Tony - Snator Durbin.

As you state - "poorly thought our(t)". Seems to describe Senator Durbin.

Quit dodging the questions Terry.

This Administration has made Torture the policy of the United States of America.

Do You support that?

Should we not speak out against it?

Come on Terry. Have some guts. Tell us what you really feel, rather than hiding behind typos.

Tony,

I answered you question:

"...who should be the target of your criticism, Snator Durbin, who criticised these very same actions with a poorly thought our analogy, or this administration..."

I answered Durbin. I don't think I could be any clearer.

Anyway, what our military is doing at Club Gitmo is less torture than the survival training our military goes thru.

I have a realtive who was in Naval Aviation - waterboarding was part of their survival training.

I guess its how you define torture.

If the gitmo guests want to be treated as POWs, they should have been fighting under a country's flag.

Senator Durbin is still an embarassment.

Gee, thanks Senator Durbin for telling us what would finally,after all these years, beat you in office --a really wealthy candidate.
Memo to Andy McKenna Illnois Republican Party Chairman: Please Andy look for a real, real wealthy guy to take out Durbin--he has some $6 million find a guy with $50 million not afraid to spend it. Then run some commercials of Dickie's Senate floor speech on American soldiers being like the Soviets in their gulags or Pol Pot a rant that keeps on giving. Obviously, Durbin was for federal funded campaigns he's never met federal funding that he wasn't for--he is tax and spend Durbin. Andy keep working on it, Jerry White, Springfield, IL

Terry, you support torture.

Every single thing done to our fliers at the Hanoi Hilton is perfectly acceptable under this administrations description of torture. I guess your fine with the treatment those guys got. I'm not.

You are an embarassement if you support those actions. Those actions are a discrace to every principle that this country is based on.

Your problem with Durbin is that he was too right.

Here are the torture techniques that I have found listed that have occured at Gitmo:

sleep deprivation, stress positions, loud music (if its rap music - ok that's torture), detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water, they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 24 hours or more, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees.

I really don't have a problem with it.

Let's shut it down and let them go back to their country of origin with one condition: put a GPS chip inside of them without their knowledge and we can track them back to rat holes and eliminate them in the battlefield.

If I'm an embarrassment in you eyes Tony, so be it. As I mentioned before, much of these same techniques were used on my relative as he went thru Naval Aviation survival training.

Terry-

This administration, as I noted above, has defined torture as only nbeing suffering where the pain rises to the level of death or organ failure. They did not define it at that high a level for nothing. We have no idea what sort of tchniques have been used in the secret interogation centers in eastern europe.
We do know that detainees have been beaten to death while being interogated ion Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46659-2004May21.html

Did your relative get beaten to the edge of death? Did he suffer pain akin to organ failure? Would you want him too?

Tony,

Let's put it personal:

If you had captured someone who you thought had information about someone else that was going to harm/kill a loved one (spouse, child, etc...), what would you do to extract the information from that individual?

Waterboarding was part of the Naval Aviation survival training. From what I heard from him and others, when you are going through it, you really do think you are going to die.

First question : NO. Torture is wrong Period. It doesn't work. Period. It doesn't matter what uniform the torturer wears.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

We're not just talking about waterboarding here Terry. We're talking about beating information out of people. We're talking about extreme pain. We're talking about death in some cases.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18414

You may think that's a great thing to expect our country to do. I do not. I believe that respect for the rule of law and every humans inalienable rights is what makes this country worth defending.

But you're right Terry, let's make it personal. Your relative, the naval aviator, let's imagine he is shot down by a hostile power. They want to know where the next bombing raid is going to hit. So they decide to put him in a sleeping bag so he's confined, and then sit on his chest so that he has trouble breathing. Being a good soldier your relative doesn't give the information the interrogator wants. So the interogator puts his hand over your relative's mouth. Unfortunately that kills your relative. Are you ok with that? Because that's what's happened in a documented case of our interrogation tactics.

Better yet Terry, if this does happen to your realtive, we no longer have a leg to stand on to punish those who did that to your relative. As known violators of international law on torture, we've given up any hope of being able to charge others with war crimes in this matter. We are no better than they.

These are all things you support Terry. These are things you want our young men and women to do. This is what you want America to be about. Why should we expect any different from the potential captor of your relative?

This is what you want your realtive to endure Terry:

"The officer and NCOs interviewed by Human Rights Watch say that torture of detainees took place almost daily at FOB Mercury during their entire deployment there, from September 2003 to April 2004. While two of the soldiers also reported abuses at FOB Tiger, near the Syrian border, the most egregious incidents allegedly took place at FOB Mercury. The acts of torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment they described include severe beatings (in one incident, a soldier reportedly broke a detainee's leg with a baseball bat), blows and kicks to the face, chest, abdomen, and extremities, and repeated kicks to various parts of the detainees' bodies; the application of chemical substances to exposed skin and eyes; forced stress positions, such as holding heavy water jugs with arms outstretched, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness; sleep deprivation; subjecting detainees to extremes of hot and cold; the stacking of detainees into human pyramids; and the withholding of food (beyond crackers) and water." Picture every one of those things happening to your relative, and picture youreslf inflicting those things upon them, because that is exactly what you are supporting.

TORTURE. Terry's vision of American values.

In your hypothetical, my realative the naval aviator did exactly what he was supposed to do. Keep his mouth shut.

Would I be happy? Of course not.

I guess you would just treat your prisioner to the three squares and a cot and let your innocent relatives die.

Hope you never get into a back alley fight.

Terry, I'd die with muy dignity and honor intact, not as a war criminal, unlike you.

I guess your problem with Durbin's statement was that he criticized the Soviets, Nazi's and Pol Pot for their use of a practice you admire, torture. You would praise them for their use of torture, rather than condemn them, right?

Your realtives would die also and you would have tried nothing, absolutely nothing to save them.

The comparison between Pol Pot, the Soviets and Nazis wasn't even in the same ballpark. It was embarassing, but I've come to expect that from our seantor.

Terry, is your offense at the comparison that the Soviets , Pol Pot and the Nazi's were better at torture than we are, and you think we should be the best at everything?

And what if you tortured and innocent man or woman while trying to save your relatives Terry, then what? Just too damn bad? Sorry?

What if someone decided those relatives you care so much about were the threat and needed to be tortured? Better hope they don't look too middle eastern.

Terry, if you think torture is such a fine notion, are you going to pick up your baseball bat and electrodes and chip in? Are are you too squemish for that?

If you thought that it would protect you and your relatives to lock up muslims in concentration camps, would you do that terry? Does death scare you that much? Are you that big a coward?

Tony,

Nice blanket approach. Unlike Dick Durbin's favorite regimes, the US has no history of mistreating the vast majority of its prisioneers. A few, a very few, have been tortured to extract information that wasa believed to be necessary for teh safety and security of our troops or this country.

The concentration camp idea - I'll leave that to FDR.

If the situation warranted, the baseball bat, electrodes, etc.. would all be considered as data extractors of choice. If I had someone that had knowledge of the harm to my family. Yes I would use that force that I would deem necessary to extract that data.

If there were two terrorist, the approach I would use is the fake execution of one in front of the other.

Death doesn't scare me Tony. Nice name calling Tony. I would expect better.

In case you haven't notice, our enemy is not using Queensberry Rules.

Terry,

Is there any line you would not cross? How many would you torture maim or kill to "protect" your family? I put protect in quotes becuase you so studiously ignore the evidence that torture is a lousy way of gathering information.

What percentage of prisoners need to be tortured to be worthy of condemnation?

You've bever answered what should happen if you're wrong , and the person you so gleefully tortured was innocent and didn't have the information you want. I don't think it really matters to you, they're not your family so their lives are without value.

You know Terry, in that sense, you are no different than them. You believe in the same tactics, and the same "only my group has value" philosophy. You would probably fit in real well with the insurgents in Iraq. After all, I'm sure many of them feel they're only protecting their families when they kill our soldiers, right? I'm sure the guys who felw the planes into the WTC were able to convince themselves they were protecting their families against the evil americans, so I would imagine you would find that to be a moral act.

I would fit in well with the insurgants in Iraq?

I wouldn't go discriminately car bombing innocent civilians.

I would start the war as the agressor.

I wouldn't chop off heads of prisioners ro journalist.

Remember the premise, this would be done in protection of family, not just some stupid jihad.

What do you think the gov't should have dome if on 9-10-01 they had captured Mohhamed Atta and knew that a terrorist attack was imminant on this country? To what extent would you have tried to get information from him?

Assume you failed, how would you felt? Would you have said, "I played by the rules" or " I should have done more" to get the information that might have saved 3,000 lives?

"I would fit in well with the insurgants in Iraq?

I wouldn't go discriminately car bombing innocent civilians."

No you would torture them. Not any better.

"Remember the premise, this would be done in protection of family, not just some stupid jihad."

No we're not talking about the protection of family Terry. We are talking about the use of torture by the intelligence community and the military being sanctioned by the US government. Not you protecting your family in some bizarre "24" fantasy. We're talking about official government torture of captives including POW's.

"What do you think the gov't should have dome if on 9-10-01 they had captured Mohhamed Atta and knew that a terrorist attack was imminant on this country? To what extent would you have tried to get information from him?"

Nice try Terry, but that's not what's going on now is it? No, we're torturing guys who have been turned in for a cash bounty in Afghanistan, many of whom we've found to have nothing to do with terorism. We've tortured legitimate POW's in Iraq. Not "ticking bombs" Terry.

"Assume you failed, how would you felt? Would you have said, "I played by the rules" or " I should have done more" to get the information that might have saved 3,000 lives?"

Might is a big word Terry. I wil, NEVER feel guilty for not torturing someone. I will NEVER feel guilty for not committing a crime against humanity. No one should.

But Terry, why do you keep dodging the simple question: What if you torture an innocent? What if you torture the wrong guy?

Where is that threshold Terry? When does torture become a problem for you? Does it ever?