The Rubber Hose Right: Remembering Everything, Learning Nothing

So I go run an errand a bit ago and the radio is blaring Limbaugh. He’s having his customary paroxysms and today it’s all about trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civil court. I’ve not given it a lot of thought, but my inclination is to agree that this is a stupid move by the Amateur President. Buchanan gives some of the reasons why.

But what cracked me up was listening to Limbaugh freaking out as the chickens of his own torture advocacy started coming home to roost. One of his objections to trying KSM in civil court is that the guy was tortured. Only his commitment to upholding the Orwellian lies of the Bushies forces him to say KSM wasn’t tortured. Only he knows he really was, so he keeps whipsawing between calling it by it’s right name and then ridiculing the Left for calling it torture. Meanwhile, what’s driving him crazy with fear is that if KSM *is* tried in civil court, it will mean trying the guy while using evidence obtained by torture and trying him without having given him his Miranda rights. So what? So this: Limbaugh is (rightfully) fearful that it will set a precedent for trying the rest of us under similar conditions if Caesar should decide to declare Inconvenient Persons to be “enemy combatants” as a quick way of dealing with Undesirables.

The lesson he naturally draws from this is “Obama is evil”, not “I was a bloody fool to endlessly defend the Bush torture policies and now look at the Pandora’s box I have labored to help open. Dear God, forgive me!”. Conservatism used to involve the notion of humble self-assessment before the Throne of Almighty God for grave sins. The Thing That Used to Be Conservatism only involves bending reality for the sake of short-term political advantage. Saying things like “I have sinned through my own fault” puts a real crimp in the endless scrimmage for power.

Update: A reader notes something else that Limbaugh point out: namely “it sounds like Obie and Holder are violating the idea of fair trial by assuring us the terrorists will be found guilty and put to death. Why are we having a trial if they’re willing to plead guilty? Let’s get on to sentencing.”

To be clear, KSM has not indicated, so far as I know, a willingness to plead guilty. But it’s true that the Administration *has* made clear that the outcome of the trial is foreordained: KSM *will* be found guilty says the Administration. Which does indeed beg the question, “Then why are we having a trial?” Those in the Islamosphere will get the clear message “Trials are shams.” Those living here who have the capacity to see beyond the ends of their noses will ask, “If KSM can be tortured, tried without Miranda, and doomed to execution by Presidential fiat before the trial has even happened, and all in a civil court, then isn’t that sort of a dangerous precedent for the rest of us if the President decides we are also Undesirable for some reason?”

The Rubber Hose Right and the Obama-Worshipping Left: Working to Together to Create a Better Oceania!