So Qlipoth has out up a video of Matt Lauer interviewing George Bush. Lauer performs with more backbone than the MS American press has shown recently; he is still however spineless.
The president responds by claiming that what people have claimed to be torture is ‘developing tools within the constitution’. These tools ‘thought necessary’ are necessary for the President and ‘people in the government’ to ‘do what they need to do to’ ‘protect’ ‘you and your family’. CIA Secret facilities are a non-issue: ‘so what why is that not within the law?’ ‘We just agree to disagree with’ individuals, nations, NGOs, etc, that find themselves at odds with our assertions of legality.
Because as Bush says, his ‘job is to protect you’ [here jabs a finger at Lauer]. Because the majority of the American people would say that it is ok to ‘get information out’ of the mastermind of the 9.11 attacks ‘without torturing’. This is what the president claims he did. Because his ‘job is to protect this country, Matt — within the law’. Even though he is second-guessed all the time by ‘people who don’t live within the United States’ (damn that News Corp does not own significant portion of French media), the president reminds us that ‘September 11th for them was a bad day; for us it was a change of attitude’.
And so on. Bushes body language throughout is highly aggressive. Lauer actually looks a bit frightened at points, yet he does stick it through and press the question; he receives throughout the same answers: snakingly clever legalistic answers: ‘I told our people to get information without torture and was assured by our justice department that we were not torturing’ when asked if he had approved all the techniques used. The is a shrewdness here for when this is investigated in the future, when threats of the threat to your family are no longer so potent.
Why not talk about ‘techniques we use on people’? ‘One reason why is because we don’t want the enemy to adjust’. How would one ‘adjust’ to waterboarding? Growing gills?
But, ‘the American people need to know we are using techniques’ (new weasely word) ‘within the law to protect them’; techniques such as ‘listening to Al-Qaeda if they’re calling this country’ — damn those ‘some people’ who want ‘to get rid of that program’! ah, and those ‘walls’ that have been eliminated between criminal investigators and intelligence forces; and yes, that best source, when ‘we pick up somebody off of a battlefield’ (said with paternal reminding emphasis) ‘and interrogate them within the law to get data’.
Within the law is a very big thing. I don’t watch much television — in fact I don’t even own a television at the moment. But I find this interview frightening: Bush comes off as above the law. This should not be surprising; it is not actually surprising. But the way he carries himself on the camera, like a half-adept thug whose previous allies are considering selling him out to maintain their stakes, is frightening. What will they think of next?
The YouTube! responses were as frightening: a mixture of thuggish who-the-fuck-cares-these-are-criminals and shit-man-you-gotta-get-them-before-they-get-your-family.
Comments