October 2007: Scream, Electorate, Scream!

As Rumsfeld arrives in Paris, a torture suit is filed by European human rights groups and the Center for Constitutional Rights. From CCR's press release—

We filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor on October 25, 2007 charging Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine, and left through a door connecting to the U.S. embassy to avoid journalists and human rights attorneys outside. Under French law, there is a duty to prosecute and investigate such complaints when the torturer is on French soil. The Paris case is particularly relevant because eight former Guantánamo detainees live in France.

In Paris, watertiger notes: What they didn't count on was his cunning plan to escape!

A seasonally appropriate move by Rumsfeld. As is his next, when he is seen lying low in The Netherlands...

Among other Republican observances of the season, watertiger spots: "Trick or treat for Unitary Executive!"

Not particularly connected to Halloween–Republicans go as bullies every day–but gruesome nevertheless, is the stalking of Graeme Frost and family, after the disabled 12-year old testifies before Congress, prior to the children's health care vote.

Tim Grieve, does the math on this bit of hypocrisy–

When [Tony] Snow announced in August that he was leaving his job as White House press secretary, he said he was doing so because he "ran out of money." Snow made $168,000 at the White House and presumably received health insurance as a federal employee.

...

The clear implication: The $168,000 Snow was making at the White House wasn't enough to handle month-to-month expenses for Snow, his wife and their three kids.

So how about that 12-year-old? His family of six -- one kid bigger than Snow's -- has an annual income of about $45,000. Without SCHIP -- and without health insurance subsidized by an employer -- the family's only route to medical insurance for the kids would have been to buy it themselves on the open market, if they could have gotten it; they apparently tried but were refused because of preexisting conditions.

And about the Republicans' deeming the Frosts fair game–Oh, no. The Republicans would never use children as props–says watertiger, who compiles just a few examples of Bush's photographic child exploitation.

Also from the Family Values Party–

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 — Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho, defying the wishes of many in his own Republican Party, said Thursday that he would remain in the Senate through next year despite a court ruling against him in Minnesota, where he had sought to rescind his guilty plea stemming from an undercover sex sting.

While Craig is an easy, obvious target, driftglass concludes that—

Beneath the gales of laughter, what Republican Senator Craig has been mostly is pathetic. A frail human caught up in his own frantic flight from himself, tripping and falling into the spotlight because his pants were tangled up around his ankles.

Under other circumstances, he would just be sad. Under other circumstances, I would feel genuinely sorry for the guy.

But these are not other circumstances, because Republican Senator Craig has spent his professional life choosing to lend his voice to this nation’s chorus of hateful, vicious, self-righteous scum.

...in the end, Republican Senator Craig’s only real mistake when busted was not thinking fast enough on his feet to claim – loudly and con mucho outrage – that he was just looking for WMDs in the potty.

Craig's only mistake, says driftglass, was to Lie Small—when, "Had he Lied Big, stuck his chin out, and stridently accused anyone who questioned him of being an America-hating traitor, he would not today be a figure of ridicule and farce." Had he done that—

Instead of being a national punchline, at this very moment, in an off-ramp men’s room outside of Tacoma, he’d be heroically conducting Operation Raging Beefhammer with some new best friend.

While proudly sporting his freshly-minted Presidential Medal of Freedom.