Catholic Ragemonkey

Ragemonkey Red Alert: Contradiction and the Curse of Crying Wolf

I have been saving and savoring the right response to the whole Durbin debacle. For those who were under a rock or vactioning on the dark side of the moon, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) made disparging comments about Guantanamo Bay and the soldiers employed there, comparing them to Nazis and Stalinist thugs. Durbin's claim was that the soldiers had no concern for human beings.

Now, whether or not you like the war in Iraq or even war in general, you can recognize the ridiculous unneccesary dimensions of this rhetoric. To date, no one has died in G.B. No one has been sent to a gas chamber because they were of the wrong nationality or religion. When you look at the Nazi and Stalinist regimes, each of which can easily claim 28 million casualities, you can see the comparision of G.B. and our government to those regimes is totally bo-ooo-gus.

But this lead to a funny recollection. In 2003, when the ban on partial birth abortion was being run through Congress, Sen. Durbin voted "nay" to this ban. Apparently, it shows great concern for human beings to jam scissors into the back of their heads and vacuum out their brains. It would seem to me that Sen. Durbin falls into the great mass of those who can't stand to look at themselves throughly. In short, he cried wolf at Guantanamo all the while clapping his massive paws together on abortion. Each day approximately 4000 lives end in the abortion theater, yet Durbin saves his opporbrium for a situation which might be defective but doesn't match the evil he endorses. In short, Chicken Little, please lend the senator your umbrella.

Of course, being a skilled politician, Durbin retracted his comments. Personally, I am unaffected by crocodile tears. I would be more impressed if his tears were the product of a healthy sense of contrition. But that's what happens when you cry "Wolf!" You often have to back pedal in the hopes that someone will continue to take you seriously. I hope the voters in Illinois don't give him that chance.