I havent swung by that way for a while

When next you do, I recommend the hot chocolate at Bracegirdle’s.

Where have all the good fish and chips shops gone.

Semaphore Road.

This seems unlikely, saint.

The other question is, whose chronic ineptitude of choice rendered my “Schism” post worthy of inclusion on ML? Crack that whip Gummo…this is your show.

The Clinton administration is OK because it pioneered renditions, and used information obtained by torture, and saw the disappearance and death of men in custody without trial, and stressed the need for respecting lawful boundaries (whose laws, and who are the “allied intelligence services”, who were told to respect them? not to mention, why then, resort to rendition…?) Oh and pulled some money (did it stop renditions by the Clinton administraton?).

Sensational.

And thank you Gummo, for making my point so well. And for displaying the laziness and hubris for which you are known.

Not sure which way you lean, dress, or hold your knife, Saint.

But.

It was TimT who called Tim who called you a righty. “I think the Saint (Dog Fight at Bankstown) leans to the right.”

On the other hand, TonyT merely slagged off those feral lefties, Flute, Tiley and FX Rampant.

Why do you think I chose that one and what point was I making?

Chronic ineptitude for the choice – you chose to ignore everything the article had to say about the Bush administration’s conduct and focus instead on the last three paras. As to the point you were making – basically you were trying to reinforce CL’s “argument” that criticism of Bush on this issue is in some way invalid unless you’re also prepared to criticise Clinton. An argument that CL has used before, along with a good deal of hair-splitting on the nature of torture so that he could denounce torture, yet defend Bush at the same time.

And what have you now demonstrated with your response?

Let’s turn that question around. What you’ve demonstrated with your last comment, as you did in your post on that schism video, is an incapacity to recognise valid argument when it’s made by someone to whom you’re ideologically opposed – and there are so many of them.

No, you haven’t become Bush’s “deputy sheriff” – that’s pure self-aggrandising hyperbole on your part. You do seem to have a fair bit of trouble recognising reasonable and valid criticism of your own beliefs, unless the criticism is on your terms (that is, it’s no criticism at all).

The quote “The Bush adminstration threatens us….” is from Obisidian.

The other link I provided was to a Washington Post article I found while googling this subject. Out of the several articles I read while googling, I deliberately chose the WP article, the WP being “lefty” and this particular article being fairly matter of fact.

Why do you think I chose that one and what point was I making?

And what have you now demonstrated with your response?

You know, what I also find amusing Gummo is that since I’ve started blogging I’ve been called a leftist (e.g. by Tim Blair), been censored by leftists (e.g by Loewenstein) did a few guest posts at LP in its earliest days, had to extricate my blog from being aggregated on a Labor site, called right-leaning (by say Quiggin and TonyT here), am listed in Wikipedia under Family First and not because I sang their praises, have been listed as both left and right on other people’s blogrolls (at least those who use those categories) and now, if I read you correctly, I have become Bush’s deputy sheriff, no, not just that, I am not capable of any criticism of Bush.

I suspect some people have a hard time finding a prefabricated box for me. They would certainly be even more confused if they saw my email box.

The Clinton administration pioneered the use of extraordinary rendition after the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But it also pressed allied intelligence services to respect lawful boundaries in interrogations.

Well that was naive of them, obviously.

After years of fruitless talks in Egypt, President Bill Clinton cut off funding and cooperation with the directorate of Egypt’s general intelligence service, whose torture of suspects has been a perennial theme in State Department human rights reports.

Oh, they wised up again – or did they? Maybe they were just paying lip service to human rights – tha hickoprits!

“You can be sure,” one Bush administration official said, “that we are not spending a lot of time on that now.”

No hypocrisy there. How refreshing.

As for this:

It seems the intent of both the Obsidian article and the editorial comment attached to the ML link to it is not to say torture/rendition is bad, and should be a cause for outrage, but to say the Bush administration is bad (because that is what our political view demands) and heres another reason why.

It seems to me that the Bush administration’s willingness to countenance torture is a very good reason to call it a bad administration, regardless of whether that’s demanded by your political view or not. I can see, though, that if your political view demands the opposite – demands that you defend the Bush administration at every turn – you might have more trouble than I do in coming to that conclusion.

CL is an incredibly valuable contributor to this blog.

Agreed Robert, and he is a valuable, if not unique voice in the Aussie blogosphere.

Having now read the Obsidian Wings article – which includes statements like:

“The Bush administration threatens us with the catastrophe of losing our sense that there are things the government cannot do every time they do one of those things. I never, ever want to go along with their redefinition of what is possible, which is why I refuse to stop being outraged when something like this happens. (It’s also why saying: hey, why are you still surprised? is beside the point. I’m not.)”

and also googled up C.L.’s quote on Clinton’s approval of rendition and found some associated reports and commentary (e.g. this Washington Post article in 2002), it does seem that the statement “should be sensational but hasnt even scored a mention in the Australian media” is editorial and betrays a particular bias.

It seems the intent of both the Obsidian article and the editorial comment attached to the ML link to it is not to say torture/rendition is bad, and should be a cause for outrage, but to say the Bush administration is bad (because that is what our political view demands) and here’s another reason why.

(Indeed, if it were possible even to “compare”, and regardless of when the facts became known, on the surface, just from this little googling exercise alone, I’d say Clinton’s administration seems to have been far worse)

Meaning, next time someone wants to claim “sensational” they perhaps should
(a) consult the history books and/or
(b) remember that not everyone who blogs either knows history or is unbiased and/or
(c) leave the editorial comments for the editorial comment boxes.

It’s a constant thrust of CL’s commentary, and for a coupla bobs I have to agree often with that thrust.

One problem permeating these sorts of threads is that, as background a) there’s general agreement on the point of distaste (say, putting it at mildest) [the right or wrong of it is a deeper thing], b) present-day actions are headbutted up with past-day actions [which is problematical not in regarding severity of those actions but in their top-of-mind impact and playout], c) blogs of today didn’t exist in the time of many of those past-day actions (eg the Clinton years), leading to the problem: the terms of reference for dialogue or debate haven’t been established. It’s a free-for-all according to one’s headspace, which will obviously be weighted on any or all of the variants, many of which go unmentioned but still colour the place commentary is coming from.

Come another thread – and those problems are multiplied, as not only is one or another’s headspace not had time to be better placed in the melee, it’s part and non-contextualised placement has bugger-all chance of being received beyond a brief, then often knee-jerk review, stained by previous attempts.

CL is an incredibly valuable contributor to this blog. Sometimes I wonder why CL’s comments appear here, after the problems this often lone-operator goes through, to make a central or centralising point. Too often that point is disdained. In effect, what CL is doing here (amongst failures which we all have) is highlighting a singular question:

Do bloggers really weigh up and present impartially?

The answer: no. Why? Who can.

There are so many factors involved, externally if you will, and yet these are perceived and cooked from within. And time changes it all – often, daily. That’s what we all bring to the table.

From CL’s point of view, expressed very often singularly and no doubt on behalf of many who’d disagree (silently) with views presented here, for example, it would be made much more frustratingly and urgently and needfully (and therefore subject to flaws, which we all have) when a blog espouses to be centralist. It might be of value to consider how you’d go commenting elsewhere, trying to express yourself.

It’s also a recipe for energy, stimulation, disaster, reflection, and very hopefully some sort of insight.

This centrist thing is up for contention (yet again), not just here but anywhere it poses. [And CL you have to take into account this is a time while people adjust - a better description of the 'honeymoon' time]. Take up CL’s thrust: will Rudd (eg; et al) be written up as critically as his predecessor? What will be glossed over, or ignored?

Those questions as brought about by the thrust of CL’s involvement here are very valid, in respect of how Club Troppo presents itself.

Again, that contribution is incredibly valuable on that account, at least – and moreso because of the value of a publication attempting ‘centralism’ for my two bobs.

Can we go a step yet again?

What is centralism?

What would such a thing presume, assume?

That it knows the full (that’s important, yes, no?) extent of all (that’s important, yes, no?) varying views?

That there is a centralist position- given that ‘left’ and ‘right’ is itself up for contention?

In respect of this publication, with regards its attempt to be ‘centralised’ – who in representing it is headlining that cause?

This commenter has said above there is value in attempting ‘centralism’ – does this contradict my other commentary above? Or does it require qualification? If so on the latter, my bobs would be there is no such thing as ‘left’ ‘right’ or thereby ‘central’ – only that occasion can be created for varying viewpoints to be expressed, without fear or favour.

FWIW, this is the only publication I’ve seen which has attempted that very thing.

I guess this, as in many ways we, are a work in progress, here’s best, flaws included, to explore it some more.

“Hypocrisy” would be condoning (or engaging in) torture when it suited, and condemning it when it didn’t. I don’t doubt for a moment that political activists and protestors of all persuasions are guilty of hypocrisy from time to time, but this doesn’t strike me as a particularly compelling example.

Today’s matching story, which I fancy also came through yesterday’s ML, is the Vanity Fair article, “The Green Light”. This is the teaser:

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guant

There’s nothing “weaselly” about my point, Gilmae, because it’s not an ‘excuse’. I don’t support torture and wrote against it several times on my older blog – including against those Deakin twerps who tried to suggest it was OK pursuant to the ‘ticking bomb’ thesis. I think I was about the only right-of-centre blogger to do so – got all the ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ comments from the right etc. The point I make, then, is not made to run interference for any political party. (Unlike you and Ken, who are obviously lefties pretending to be pure spirits hovering above the spectrum. Ken’s been up there for years). Mine was simply an historical point and a cultural one. It’s this: the Western left didn’t give a fat rat’s arse about the US Administration and torture during the Clinton years – when it was really horrifyingly murderous – but now they claim to be OUTRAGED by such things as SENSATIONAL things waterboarding. Like Ken, they’ll have a bob each way for the sake of image but come crunch-time, they’ll always run interference for their fellow – in this case – revolting liberals.

Taken to an absurd length, the Left are expected to blush and hang their head in shame when their outrage at the denial of habeus corpus because Lincoln did it as well, and they weren’t OUTRAGED when that happened. Oh wait, that’s not just absurd; it happened a few years ago.

A pox on all partisan whores.

You seem to go into autopilot when commenting. Despite everyone in this comment thread stressing that they ARE just as horrified by Clinton’s complicity in authorising torture as by Bush’s in more recent events, you still robotically repeat the mantra that the “left is concerned about Bushitler waterboarding … but not by Clinton sending dozens of untried men to Egyptian dungeons” as if these comments didn’t exist. Just who are these unnamed members of “the left” who don’t give a shit about Clinton’s actions? Does it not seem rather more likely that people are discussing Bush administration complicity because it’s the current incumbent government and the news of senior figures’ direct complicity has only just become public, whereas Clinton’s actions however reprehensible are now just historical curiosities?