Has everyone in Congress flipped off their interior monologues? The feathers were still floating around the head of Dick Durbin as he made his apology to the Senate, the US soldiers, and anybody else who heard him compare Guantanamo soldiers to the Nazis.
His apology had the same effect as telling somebody, “um, sorry I ran over your dog,” with Republicans accepting his apology as a courteous and noble recompense.
In case you missed it, here’s what started it. Quoting from an FBI agent’s memo, which some have said was inaccurate to begin with, Durbin read an account of prisoners in Guantanamo being deprived of food and water, and chained to the floor in oppressive temperatures.
The (expletive deleted) hit the fan when he continued with, “”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.”
The interior monologue suddenly returned as, “did I say that out loud?” echoed between his Democrat ears.
The chance to point out Durbin’s analogous faux pas of equating death camps and killing fields to a group of mildly uncomfortable non-uniformed enemy combatants wasn’t lost on the party foul police.
After persistent lambasting from the White House, Congressional Republicans, the military, radio-talk show hosts, bloggers, grandmothers, little girls, parrots, and talking alarm clocks, Durbin made his apologies.
“Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies,” he said. “I’m also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. When you look in the eyes of the soldiers you see your son and daughter. They are the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them.”
It almost sounds like he means it.
Meanwhile, in other dark corners, Donald Rumsfeld shares his thoughts.
“He said some things and he’s going to have to live with them, and I think that that’s not a happy prospect,” said Rumsfeld on “The Tony Snow Show.” He must have been reflecting on the time he told American troops in Iraq suck it up and deal with their lack of sufficient armor.
Durbin’s apology comes after Republican Rep. John Hostettler halted proceedings on defense spending with his unfortunate message to Democrats.
“Like moths to a flame, Democrats can’t help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians,” he said but later recanted, having his remarks stricken from the official record. No one’s sure what that had to do with defense budgets.
But the Dems freaked anyway, still sensitive about Howard Dean’s volatile verbiage regarding the stuff he says Republicans are made of.
Of course some might say that it’s just desserts for the Democrats after their crucifixion of Trent Lott after his slightly more ambiguous praising of Strom Thurmond.
Perhaps the two major parties should change their monikers to Pot and Kettle so we’ll at least know which is which.