John McCain made a big fuss about opposing Bush on torture. But then Bush signed one of his infamous “signing statements” promising to ignore the law banning torture. McCain, victim of political expediency and sucking up to Bush, stayed mum.
He Has His Reasons
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This was a bit of an exercise for me; I wanted to make about as mainstream a cartoon as I possibly could, just to see how it would come out. I used to do this sort of “it’s not a, it’s a —” format cartoon a lot, but it’s been a long time. I think it turned out OK.
Communism at Gitmo
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It was a page one story in the New York Times, but the fact that the military relied on a memo describing how to elicit false confessions through torture became the basis of torture training at Gitmo somehow fell off the radar screen.
Half
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I hope Obama wins. It’s more fun to criticize a Democrat for his hypocrisy and worthlessness than a Republican for being true to his well-heeled donors.
The System Works
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The U.S., a.k.a. “Oops!” nation, does it again: After years of madness and torture and violating habeas corpus, the U.S. Supreme Court begins to restore the rule of law by invalidating parts of the Military Commissions Act. But what about those for whom the Court ruled too late?
Torture Memos
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The most recently leaked Bush Administration memos rely on a novel argument: something that’s illegal won’t be punished if the person committing the crime says he was trying to stop a terrorist attack. You could be appalled–or you could use this legal nonsense yourself.
CIA TortureTapeGate
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The CIA tortures, but as was the case for Nixon ordering goons to break into Democratic HQ, torture isn’t the problem–it’s all about the cover-up. In this case, the Justice Department is after the CIA, not for torture, but for destroying tapes of torture. America is weird.
Left v. Right
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This one resulted from a few conversations I’ve had lately with conservative friends. There are other differences between lefties and righties, of course, but one of those we’ve neglected is this one. Many Republicans wonder, given all the things America does right, why we whine so much about what it does wrong. We, of course, wonder why conservatives don’t want to make our country even better.
