Andrew Sullivan, he of “The First Gay President” fame, has
responded
to a blog
note of mine in which I, tongue in cheek, mentioned
understanding “the temptation to waterboard” MSNBC host Chris Hayes
who offered the worst of liberal gobbledygook about his being
“uncomfortable about the word ‘hero’.”
Sullivan offers this, which apparently passes for insight: “The
most revealing thing about this rant is its understanding of
waterboarding. It is, in Kaminsky’s eyes, an instrument of
punishment. Every now and again, the far right shows its hand. The
adoption of torture was as much about revenge and payback as it was
a misguided, illegal, desperate attempt to get intelligence by
methods never designed (by totalitarians) to get intelligence.”
I got a similar comment from a follower of Sullivan’s who,
desperately searching for a thought of his own, said that “Your
post is vile and says much more about you than the people you
suggest might be conceivably targeted for waterboarding as
‘punishment.’I thought waterboarding is defended on the right as a
legitimate form of interrogation intended only to obtain urgently
relevant information. That’s quite a slip. You inadvertently
confirm that it is indeed a form of punishment, even if you
weasel-word and say you wouldn’t inflict it yourself. This is the
great thing about the insurrectionist right: you can’t help
yourselves. You betray the underlying violence of your intentions,
and these little slip-ups are becoming more and more common among
the demagogic cacklers you represent. We notice even if you
don’t.”
So let’s be clear about this. A car can be used to take you to
work, or for the sport of racing. An iPhone can be used to make a
call, surf the web, or play a game. A liberal can be used to raise
your taxes or to show a substantial, if not diagnosable, disconnect
with reality. And waterboarding can (theoretically) be used to
extract information from a non-compliant enemy captive or to make
someone feel uncomfortable, as Mr. Hayes feels about the word
‘hero’, for example.
Nothing about my joke implies that waterboarding as
used on KSM, and which seems to have contributed to the finding and
killing of Osama bin Laden, was punishment rather than an
aggressive means of interrogation.
What is particularly funny is that Sullivan does accurately
quote my words in which I say specifically that “the proper
punishment for Mr. Hayes and his ilk is to make sure their TV
ratings are as low as possible (which may already be the case when
it comes to Mr. Hayes’ show) and to vote against Democratic
candidates, other than those who (unlike John Kerry) have served
with honor, at every opportunity…”
In other words, anybody but the most hypersensitive liberal (if
you will pardon my redundancy) would recognize that my mention of
waterboarding was meant as humor, even if not humor that a liberal
would understand, and that I made explicitly clear that there is no
place for violence in this debate.
Meanwhile, liberals say nothing about the true violence done by
left-wing domestic terrorists as explained by
Stacy McCain and
Patrick Frey. When a search of the Daily Beast web
site where Sullivan writes turns up instances of my name but no
instance of Brett Kimberlin, one knows that the left is every bit
as deranged as I suggested in my note about Chris Hayes.
Therefore, unlike Chris Hayes who offered what I believe to be a
mostly insincere apology, I offer no apology for my words. It’s not
my problem if liberals can’t take a joke — and they surely
can’t.
