CNN's Tony Harris: "We have to take the president at his word"

[Cooley Hurd]

...via TPM:

"We have to take the president at his word when he says that the problem with Common Article 3, which prohibits outrages against personal dignity, is that it is unclear. And we can't have our interrogators trying to get information that we need to protect this country under a bit of language here that is this vague. We can do better than this."

[bobbieinok]

1. WHY??????? who can believe anything he says after all the lies????

[Joe Bacon]

29. Why, the PRE$$TITUTE$ from the Main$tream Media believe him!

Look at all those tax cuts those millionaire whores and pimps got for prostituting themselves for the Republican Party!

[marmar]

2. Tony Harris can go fuck himself...

Taking this president at "his word" is a deadly proposition. He has a credibility problem at this point, methinks.

[goclark]

21. Not Tony ~ I thought he was middle of the road?

What is wrong with this world?!

[Cha]

37. "Deadly" is right...look at all the

soldiers who went to war on Iraq based that banana eatin' sociopath.

[fasttense]

3. Why? He has a history of lying to get what he wants.

Remember the WMDs in Iraq. He's afraid he will face war crime charges when we return to democracy.

[soothsayer]

4. Well, * is the only dumbass in history who doesn't understand it.

Evidently. Maybe someone should EXPLAIN it to him, real slow like.

[Kierkegaard]

6. He doesn't have time for explanations. He's too busy making

decisions. Remember, he's the decider! :eyes:

In reality, we should be able to take a President at his word, but not this guy. How could anyone suggest that we take the word of a pathological liar as gospel? Silly.

[lonestarnot]

25. I find this rather telling.

:rofl:

[RandiRhodesArchives]

5. odd

I always told by the GOP that CNN stood for CLINTON News Network.
Speaking of, how come none of these "journalists" every said "We gotta just take Bill Clinton at his word"?

[Cha]

38. You should inform them that

cnn stands for Certainly Not News.

[FloridaPat]

7. The Constitution lasted over 200 years. The Geneva Convention

last about 60-70 years? And now all of a sudden under * none of these work. Maybe it's * that's the problem.

[patricia92243]

11. That's it!! what is not to understand? He does not want clarification. H

He wants to change the law so that his torture will be legal - JUST EXACTLY like a person in Germany used to do - change the law to what he wanted to do, so that everything he did was "legal" - not moral but legal.

[iamjoy]

8. Dubya and Tony Harris Are Right

that language is kind of vague. Hardly something on which to base laws and regulations.

The Eighth Amendment to our Constitution is vague too - I mean, what does "cruel and unusual punishment" really mean? If you do something often enough, it isn't really unusual, now is it? For that matter, what is "excessive" bail?

You know, much of our constitution is unclear - and while scrapping the whole thing is a bit excessive, if the President of the United States says something is necessary to protect our country from its enemies, we ought to to trust him on that and not get into a debate about laws.

Geesh.

:eyes:

[lonestarnot]

26. Well the first thing that needs to be sraped is the reasonable man

The reasonable man is just to damned reasonable.

[WyLoochka]

28. The term "cruel"

is NOT at all "vague." The way to determine if something is "cruel" is to imagine yourself, or your loved ones, being subjected to whatever method is being proposed. If you would consider it cruel to be waterboarded yourself - then God dammit - waterboarding is cruel and it is therefore prohibited. Same with sleep deprivation and being forced to stand for days and all those other depraved methods that have been reported they have been using for 5 fucking years.

Article 3 prohibits not only cruel treatment, but "humiliating and degrading" treatment as well. Again, this is not vague at all, as it's a simple mental exercise to imagine yourself or loved ones in a particular situation. If you would consider some "method" to be "humialiting and degrading" when done to you then again - God dammit - it IS humiliating and degrading.

Only people with comprehension deficits, or who are amoral, would think these words are "vague."

George W Bush's obvious amorality and comprehension deficits do not provide any reason whatsoever to rewrite the law.

[iamjoy]

34. Uh, I Wasn't Serious

I was showing the absurdity of the neo-con argument by pointing out an extreme angle of it.

As for would you want it done to yourself, too many people actually believe if you are not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear.

[annabanana]

30. As long as human imagination is limitless...

the definitions must remain fluid. If it is codified, it is erased. This isn't that hard to understand.

[WinkyDink]

31. Bush fully understands this. As do Cheney and Rumsfeld grasp.

They want to delineate so as to ALLOW THAT WHICH is NOT explicitly defined.

[malaise]

9. Fugg off Tony Harris

Torture is torture.

[rzemanfl]

10. Waking up on Saturday to Tony the Idiot is enough to make me

puke.

[focusfan]

12. take the president at his word +thats a scary thought

this presient doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground i
think it's to get his ass out of trouble if they changed the
Geneva Convention.he don't care about America

[rzemanfl]

13. Welcome to DU. n/t

[mmonk]

14. What country did he grow up in?

[SpiralHawk]

15. We can do better than Bootlicker Harris and Corporate whore CNN

Torture symps. Disgraceful. No honor. No integrity. No morals. Republicons.

[kid a]

16. That is actually the funniest thing I've heard in a long time!!!

That right up there with - "I am not a crook"

[magellan]

17. There is nothing "unclear" about Article 3

If there were, this issue would have been raised many moons ago. Every other nation that signed onto the Geneva Conventions has managed to deal with Article 3 for decades without being perplexed by its meaning.

Even the Brits, who joined the "we have a new type of enemy" club in earnest after being attacked last year, are somehow managing to muddle through and stop new terrorist attacks without whining for clarification of Article 3.

The only "unclear" thing about this entire matter is whether Congress is actually corrupt enough to change a law to retroactively and forevermore pardon the war crimes already committed and being committed by the lunatic King George.

[WinkyDink]

32. Bush just learned that he can't pardon himself.

[gademocrat7]

18. Anyone who takes shrub at his word is just as sick as he is.

This administration and all its' minions(the corporate media) are becoming more delusional. The Geneva Convention has given the world humane guidelines for over 70 years. But there is nothing humane about the shrub cabal.

[Wilber_Stool]

19. Pope George...........n/t

[spanone]

20. Tony the idiot. Read the news Tony, that's all you're hired to do.

[CrispyQ]

22. WTF?

"We have to take the president at his word"


Do these people understand the concept of consent of the governed? How the hell do you fight such ignorance?

[kurth]

23. You can never trust a dictator who has failed every test

That's why our founding fathers created a system of checks and balances in the constitution.

[Tellurian]

24. Yeah, even the test of being a "Good/BAD" dictator! nm

[papau]

27. Torture is not torture if I say so, and hold forever w/o charge is OK per

both McCain and Bush.

So CNN is OK with this?

[BurtWorm]

33. What an incredibly stupid statement.

Not much more can be said about it.

[KharmaTrain]

39. Tony Doesn't Quite Resemble A Rhode's Scholar

It's like clockwork...everytime this dude is on, his piehole utters something incredibly stupid. It's not even partisan, it's just stupid.

But then I'm starting to look forward to them every Saturday morning. What's that say about me? I've developed a taste for very bad and stupid television... :rofl:

:hi:

Cheers...

[Solly Mack]

35. Tony Harris needs to stop huffing

it's obviously damaged his brain

[Cha]

36. Fuck That, tony harris. The burp president(sic)

Lies the big Ones and we don't have to believe a fucking propoganda shyte word the friggin monkey says.

Got it?

[CarlVK]

40. Oh we DO, Tony???

Tell me Mr. Snow....which words do we have to take as truth - between "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction" and "we do not use torture"?