The Star Tribune

The Minneapolis Star Tribune's editorial today is vile and sad. You can read it here. It's sickening see how a flagship paper in one of our nation's larger cities can so emphatically support the seditious statements made by Dick Durbin. The editors say the following:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., set off a firestorm last week when he compared U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to practices employed by Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot and their ilk. His remarks were condemned by the White House, the Pentagon, the Christian Coalition, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Newt Gingrich (who called for his censure by the Senate) and by the entire right side of the talk radio/television/blog world. The heat got so bad that, late in the week, Durbin apologized if his remarks had been "misunderstood." They weren't, and Durbin should not have apologized.

Instead, the senator should have hit back hard, just as the Amnesty International did when its comparison of Guantanamo to the Soviet gulag was attacked. By caving in, Durbin did just what the orchestrated right-wing smear effort required to succeed: It made him the story rather than focusing further attention on the outrageous violations of international law and human rights being perpetrated in Guantanamo and elsewhere in the name of the American people.

The only thing this paper gets right is that Durbin's statements weren't "misunderstood." His moral equivocation of our soldiers at Gitmo to the Nazis, Soviet gulags and Pol Pot's regime was very clearly stated and understood. The Star Tribune writes as though the only ones in this country that are offended by these statements are the right wing extreme machine. While it's true that those on the right are furious about this, it should also be true that any American would find this offensive. His statement demands the outrage of all Americans.

Durbin's statement revealed that he doesn't merely have a policy difference with the Bush administration (that would be fine--I have my own differences with some of Bush's policies); rather, it demonstrated that he has a profound hatred for America and everything it stands for and tries to do while the Democrats are not in power. And I believe my assertion here is reasonable because if Durbin merely had a policy difference, there are a million different ways he could have articulated it without giving our enemies the red meat propaganda they long for.