A few days ago, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said that secret torture camps are OK, but leaking them to the media is a crime.
Below is an interesting op-ed about Frist's misguided priorities. (And to think that the conservatives dare to complain about moral relativism on the part of liberals!)
If one of his family members were captured by enemy forces and detained and tortured in a secret prison, would he still think that sort of thing is OK?
From a piece by Bart Whiteman in The Chattanoogan:
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On the way to work at his job on Capitol Hill, Sen. Bill Frist’s limo stopped at a traffic light, and the Devil opened the door and joined him on the back seat. Frist reportedly thought for a moment or two about asking the Devil to leave, but decided against it. He was intrigued. When you are trying to pilot a sinking ship through a mine-laden harbor, you will look just about anywhere for a life jacket.
By the time they reached the Hill, the Devil had Frist’s signature on a personal services contract. “Do a little easy work for me, Billy Boy, and you’ll see a return that will make that HCA stock you dumped at just the right time look like chicken feed in a cyclone.”
Without batting an eyelid, Frist got into the Senate chamber and announced that the leaking to the Washington Post of the fact that the CIA had set up secret world-wide torture camps was a far more serious “crime” than the establishment of those very same camps. “There you go, Devil. You owe me ten grand.”
Let’s try to weigh these two alleged “crimes” side by side and try to determine which on a scale of important things is the more serious. Leaks to Post? World revolts? No. Torture camps? World revolts? Yes. Hmmmm.
I guess Frist was just trying to let us know in his own subtle fashion that he had prior knowledge that these camps did in fact exist and he wasn’t going to tell us. But now he has to tell us. Darn.
I know Frist was just playing a little round of tit-for-tat. The Democrats get upset over the Valerie Plame leak, so the Republicans needed a leak they can be sore about, too. The Republicans spent months trying to find a leak of their own to moan and groan about, but it wasn’t until the Post spilled the beans about the torture camps that they finally had a leak in their lap for the taking.
Next, Frist will be trying to tell us that these sweet little camps are designed for underprivileged children to visit in the summer months and are perfectly benign. “Hey, Devil. How much if we get a few of these kids to those camps, and you could do your worst. That should be worth another ten grand. Better yet, we could sell these kids their own torture camp kits to take home for Christmas. $24.95 each.”
I have an idea. Since Frist is so unperturbed about the presence of these torture camps, and since he is retiring from his job in 2006, and since he has about as much chance of becoming president in 2008 as I do, let’s let him do a world tour for a couple of years and provide free medical care for all the victims of these camps. He could afford to do it. Money is no object to him. He sold the stock at the right time.
“Hey, Devil! I’ll do the tour for ten grand a day. And a 10% bonus for each misdiagnosis.”
I seem to recall another visit to the Earth’s surface by the Devil many years ago and another personal services contract with someone that resulted in the establishment of some “camps” outside the borders of the country the ends of which the camps were designed to serve. There was consternation then, too, when the presence of the camps were revealed. There were lots of denials, too. And some people are still denying that they ever existed.
Well, Frist hasn’t denied that they exist now. He’s just in a pout because someone leaked.
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