digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About
See the original image at thinkprogress.org

Helen Thomas Asks About Bush’s Torture Approval

thinkprogress.org — During this afternoon’s White House press briefing, reporter Helen Thomas noted that Bush “has admitted that he did sign off on torture” saying it damages “the credibility of this country.” But press secretary Dana Perino denied that the United States has ever tortured detainees and referred to testimony from CIA Director Michael Hayden as evidence

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 24, 2008

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

408 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • stormkrow, on 04/24/2008, -16/+405Takes the balls of a 70 year old woman to ask a question that matters. The MSM are cowards!!!!!
  • LucidOne, on 04/24/2008, -15/+208Good for Helen! God knows the rest of the media won't ask the tough questions! Perino is a typical Bush press secretary, a world class liar! I hope someday she has answer to a court of law and the American people!
  • MonsterSound, on 04/24/2008, -6/+171"where is everybody?" You are so right Helen and it is so pathetic.
  • Manchowder, on 04/24/2008, -9/+170So what happens when Thomas dies? Who replaces her? She is a long lost leftover of the JFK administration. It doesn't look like the country is going to move towards intellectual honesty anytime soon. Just in case anyone doubts what Helen is saying, here is the link to Bush admitting to knowingly ordering a torture meeting, and then knowingly and willfully sanctioning the orders from that meeting:

    http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id= ...

    Bush proudly trumpets that he got a group of his own lawyers and cronies together to change the definition of torture, and then ordered what would have been torture but for his personal lawyers writing memos. And his lawyer's memos have no legal authority, they are more like a promise not to prosecute their own boss.
  • bicyclethief, on 04/24/2008, -6/+158I love Helen because she visibly irritates the ***** out of Perino.
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -2/+96Not only is she one of the few journalists left with any shred of integrity, she also has an amazing sense of humor. Who can forget her stalking Colbert?!

    http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite ...

    I guess you have to laugh to keep yourself from slitting your wrists.
  • airborne99, on 04/24/2008, -8/+83WHERE [THE *****] IS EVERYBODY?!?
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -5/+70"Where is everybody? For God Sakes." Indeed Helen, where the ***** are they? Cheers to you for having a spine among the spineless.
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -12/+64I thought these Christians were told lying is a sin?

    And so is tying a person to a bag shoving a piece of cloth in his mouth and puring water all over his face.
  • vatosplace, on 04/24/2008, -13/+64The Hague will come calling.
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -8/+58May all the stars in the heavens guide that beautiful woman to highest throne in the kingdom of truth and justice while simultaneously damning the remainder of the White House press corps to the darkest depths of the pit of cowardice and cravenness. I think I love her.
  • wefarrell, on 04/24/2008, -8/+55I would do Helen Thomas. That question is 6 years overdue, glad somebody had the courage to ask it.
  • neoknight, on 04/24/2008, -6/+50Repeat a lie long enough and people will think it's the truth. This method of disinformation has existed for thousands of years, the U.S seems to have perfected it.
  • reuscel, on 04/24/2008, -5/+49If more reporters were like Helen Thomas, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. Keep up the good fight, Helen.
  • snafuhalitosis, on 04/24/2008, -4/+46Reddit has a chip-in going on to buy her flowers for being so great. If we buy enough flowers it'll be a news story.
    http://flowersforhelenthomas.chipin.com/
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -6/+41That's not really the point. We are supposed to be the good guys. The good guys don't torture. Don't let fear rob you of your humanity.
  • Arcesius, on 04/24/2008, -9/+43That's graceful aging right there. Not calling her a GILF or anything, but there seems to be a genre of old lady's who are just stand-up gals.
  • minoss, on 04/24/2008, -7/+39It's not torture because they changed the definition of torture. That's like saying it isn't cheating if you're in a different zip code.
  • snafuhalitosis, on 04/24/2008, -1/+30Actually I don't think it's cute and proper to do horrible ***** to people, that's why I'm against torture. You apparently think it's just fine and dandy to chop off people's balls. Horrifying.
  • MrBone, on 04/24/2008, -6/+35Flowers for Helen!
    http://reddit.com/info/6gws2/comments/c03t5j7
    Sorry for the crossite reference but I think she deserves it. I sent er 3 white chrysanthemums for her effort, trying to signify her quest for truth.
  • tellahoohooo, on 04/24/2008, -1/+29"The United States has not, is not torturing any detainees..." That is if you go by our new definition of torture...Which basically stipulates we do what we want, when we want, how we want and then lie to you about it and just say it never happened...next question
  • BevansDesign, on 04/24/2008, -2/+28We need a new word that means both "hilarious" and "horrible". Because that's the only way I can describe what's going on in our country these days.

    Hilorrible? Horrarious?
  • zephc, on 04/24/2008, -3/+28Yes, how dare she question our Glorious Leader!
  • neognostic, on 04/24/2008, -0/+25If Edward R. Morrow were alive today, he would be ashamed of the MSM.
  • Jerky1312, on 04/24/2008, -0/+24You are a true patriot.
  • eddy23170, on 04/24/2008, -2/+25Dana Perino is absolute joke. It comes as little surprise that the current administration hired her. She (and a legion of other people surrounding Bush) should resign immediately. If they actually cared about this country and what it stands for (or used to stand for) they would step down. I am just disgusted at this point.
  • wageslaven, on 04/24/2008, -6/+28My prediction is that Bush & Cheney never set foot outside of the USA for the remainder of their days.
  • gzuckier, on 04/24/2008, -3/+25yeah, you said that once already.

    "Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said." Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

    Abu Zubaydah also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations; rather, he was al-Qaeda's go-to guy for minor logistics -- travel for wives and children and the like. That judgment was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," Suskind writes. And yet somehow, in a speech delivered two weeks later, President Bush portrayed Abu Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States." And over the months to come, under White House and Justice Department direction, the CIA would make him its first test subject for harsh interrogation techniques.
    ...
    Which brings us back to the unbalanced Abu Zubaydah. "I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?" Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...

    yeah, that's our America, brave and strong.

  • tellahoohooo, on 04/24/2008, -6/+28how is asking a legit question ruining a press conf.? narrow minded simpleton...you'll take anything that's spoon fed to you won't you, wake up and realize whats really going on...
  • Lucas123, on 04/24/2008, -3/+25I went to the dry cleaners and then had to stop and get my car's oil changed. Then I had a sandwich at Panera for lunch. But I'm back now.
  • siszam, on 04/24/2008, -6/+27Bush is not a Christian. His fruits prove it. If you wanted to make a group of people look bad then pretending to be a member of that group then mass murdering and torturing people might be your plan.
  • Bilabrin, on 04/24/2008, -3/+23Yeah and I can't believe what a condescending C-word she comes off as in her responses.
  • xtinamo, on 04/24/2008, -1/+20Perino even mentioned her when she was a guest on TDS saying that Helen's questions are not based on fact. It's easy to say they're not based on fact when the administration has created an entirely new definition of torture that is not accepted by ANY authority on the matter or any human being with a soul for that matter.

    http://showhype.com/video/daily_show_dana_perino/
  • amadeusdemarzi, on 04/24/2008, -1/+19They say sex lengthens life! We need to keep this lady doing her thing! :)
  • dcmjzero, on 04/24/2008, -4/+22do you even know who helen thomas is?
  • malex, on 04/24/2008, -1/+19How do you figure? Is anything she's saying false or misleading?

    Bush has admitted that US agents have used waterboarding on prisoners. If you want to claim that it's justified or necessary, go for it. Don't claim it's not torture.
  • Acewrap, on 04/24/2008, -7/+25Giving someone a Subway sandwich however...
  • conthused, on 04/24/2008, -4/+21http://digg.com/politics/Join_Us_In_A_Big_Thank_Yo ...

    Hope everyone in this tread sees this
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -0/+17The day that we fully embrace your philosophy is the day we officially relinquish our tenuous hold on the title "the good guys". You're first.
  • gzuckier, on 04/24/2008, -5/+22yeah, but on the other hand they don't elect their sewage to the presidency.
  • hipnerd, on 04/24/2008, -3/+20So our country was founded on the principal of "The ends justify the means?" I thought we were better than that.

    Don't be fooled into thinking these were isolated cases that only affected "high-value" targets. Torture was widespread at prison camps in Afghanistan, Iraq and secret gulags in Eastern Europe. We have kidnapped innocent foreign nationals multiple times and tortured them. We have killed some.

    If you forget this, look at the photos from Abu Ghraib if you have the stomach. Then remember that they refused to release the "bad ones." And that 80% of the population there were innocent civilians caught up in sweeps.

    To hell with the Republican leadership that engineered this and to hell with the Democrats that don't have the spine to stand up and fight against an issue that transcends politics and can only be described as "evil."
  • madfrogurt, on 04/24/2008, -1/+18I never thought I'd see fellow citizens openly support and defend torture. No matter how far right, I always gave people the benefit of the doubt that no matter what their darkest instincts were, they would realize that it isn't sane or just to call for the pain of others.

    God help us if home grown terrorism springs up. If we start openly torturing our own citizens, its all over.
  • billyjack1958, on 04/24/2008, -0/+17I watched this on C-Span yesterday. It made me giggle and love Helen even more but it also left me with the question, "How on earth is Dana able to sleep at night??" Perino so obviously and completely missed the boat when integrity and honesty was handed out.....she was prolly to busy holding hands with chiny and shrub....
  • JFallon126, on 04/24/2008, -2/+18I met her when she spoke to my class over the summer. She is smart, ballsy, and should be the template after which all reporters model themselves. I'm really not sure who will carry her torch after she passes away. Shame.
  • malex, on 04/24/2008, -0/+16Then what are you bitching about?

    If she's an "old *****", then ***** have more backbone than your entire family.
  • ocellnuri, on 04/24/2008, -0/+16This comment is satire, right?
  • Spytap, on 04/24/2008, -8/+23I put on my robe and wizard hat.
  • tellahoohooo, on 04/24/2008, -0/+15but she's asking questions based on what the Bush Administration says...its not senile, she's not burnt out and i don't blame her for being bitter...She basically asked a question...was blatantly lied to and then dismissed...
  • madfrogurt, on 04/24/2008, -1/+16You're getting dugg down because of a combination of people who don't understand that this is sarcasm and other people who understand it is sarcasm, but done very poorly.
  • inactive, on 04/24/2008, -1/+16Just because you are willing to torture people doesn't make it right or legal.
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 100 of 411 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.