With a proper name in place: NEVER: Religious Bloggers Against Torture

Its time to know exactly what we are fighting against.  We have all seen the graphic pictures from Abu Gharib; torture that was supposedly conducted by a few bad apples.  But the revelation that President Bush knew and approved of "enhanced torture techniques" and meeting to discuss them in the White House Situation Room means that we need to know what fellow human beings are enduring because of this administration.

The Associated Press reported earlier that senior Bush administration officials took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

However, ABC News is now reporting that President Bush himself was aware of the discussions and approved the controversial interrogation tactics himself.

"Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News. "And, yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

This man of a so-called "compassionate conservativism" political ideology approved of the disturbing use of waterboarding, which you can see simulated in the following video (warning: graphic and disturbing):

The video was created by Amnesty International and their new unsubscribe-me campaign to end torture.

Sometimes seeing the truth of our leaders’ actions can be more than what we want to admit.  But that is what we are fighting to put an end to this by asking prominent leaders to come out against.  We have started to put pressure on former Governor Mike Huckabee with his new PAC and we will continue.  Please visit his website (yes I am encouraging you to do so) and ask variants of the following questions:

1. Will you affirm the Christian faith and the American principles of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by signing the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture?

2. Will you require the candidates supported by your campaign to take a stand against torture?

Let’s keep the pressure up.  It matters!

Cross posted at Faithfully Liberal for prime coverage of this topic

"George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues."

For those of you who might have missed this, take a guess.

Promoted by Rain -- who loves looking at art and thinking about the stories pictures tell...

Cross posted from The 10,000 Things

Harper's Magazine features a great story about President George W. Bush and his favorite painting.

The painting is called "A Charge to Keep," and President Bush is so inspired by it that he has taken the painting’s name for his own official autobiography, saying:

Last week my new book, The God Strategy: How Religion Became A Political Weapon in America, was published by Oxford University Press. At the same time (you might have noticed), Mitt Romney delivered his "Faith in America" speech. The timing of Romney’s speech plus some opeds my coauthor, Kevin Coe, and I placed at USA Today and a few other places, and a subsequent CNN moment, launched the book well.

In the book (if interested, see website) we discuss a moment in the 2000 presidential campaign that directly parallels where we are at in this campaign. Here’s an excerpt from the book, and then some connections to the 2008 campaign are below the fold.

For most of a mid-December evening in 1999, the Republican Party primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa, followed a predictable pattern. The six candidates on stage—Gary Bauer, George W. Bush, Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes, Orrin Hatch, and John McCain—fielded questions, argued, cracked jokes, and made their case for the party’s presidential nomination. The live audience offered periodic applause when a candidate struck a resonant chord; many others watched on television.

As the debate neared its conclusion, one of the moderators, local newsman John Bachman, posed a question sent in from an Iowan watching the debate: "I’d like to run the table quickly with one individual question. What political philosopher or thinker, Mr. Forbes, do you most identify with and why?" Forbes said John Locke, because "[e]ven though there are some flaws, I think he set the stage for what became a revolution." Keyes followed, and he opted for the nation’s founders, because they created "instruments of government that have preserved our liberty now for over 200 years." Bush was to answer next. He was known as a savvy politician—in Texas he had knocked off popular Democrat Ann Richards to become governor in 1994 and then coasted to reelection in 1998—and he seized the moment.

With all eyes on him, Bush answered, "Christ, because he changed my heart." There was a pause; a beat or two passed in the room as the answer settled. Bush gave a quick, confident nod, indicating he was content to leave it at that. But Bachman followed up: "I think the viewer would like to know more on how he’s changed your heart." Bush smiled momentarily, then turned serious as he said, "Well, if they don’t know, it’s going to be hard to explain. When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ"—and here Bush had the perfect words to connect with religious conservatives—"when you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that’s what happened to me."

Bush’s response drew loud applause from the audience. But it also did more: it established a norm. Hatch followed Bush by saying that Christ’s influence upon him "goes without saying," adding, "I bear witness to Christ, too. I really know him to be the savior of the world. And that means more to me than almost anything else I know." McCain, ever the maverick in 2000, named Theodore Roosevelt. Last up was Bauer, a religious leader with a lineage in the Reagan administration. He offered a veritable sermon on the importance of Christ, concluding, "If America’s in trouble in the next century, it will be because we forgot what he taught us." Bush’s signal had been sent and received, and the dynamic of the debate was changed.

That’s the power of the God strategy.

Eight years later, the 2008 GOP candidates gather this Wednesday for their final Iowa debate before that state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses on January 3. This year, three GOP candidates have already had "Christ moments." Yes, three—like the entire primary calendar, presidential religious politics is in overdrive this time around.

Did anyone else see this book review in Salon?  "How George Bush really found Jesus"  

It's a great story of how Bush lied about his supposed Billy-Graham-inspired conversion and in fact found Jesus through "The Minister of Sunset Strip."

There are two major classes of falsehoods the U.S. government uses to justify its incursions into the Middle East and occupation of Iraq.

The first is a contrived threat to the U.S., like Saddams's cache of WMD’s or links to Al-Qaeda, desgined to invoke fear and patriotism in mainstream Americans. Though much discussed and long ago debunked in the liberal blogosphere, it's being dusted off and reused for Iran.

The second class of lies is aimed at a different group - the Christian right-wing of America. This catergory of lie says that the U.S. must invade and occupy the Middle East because America's Christian way of life is threatened by "Islamo-Fascists." (Any liberal who objects is fascist too.)

The standard m.o. for this class of lie is to denigrate Islam by equating it with terrorism and to paint a picture that shows Muslims hate America for its Christian beliefs. This 2nd class of lies is designed to rally the Christian right to support war and the Republican party - and is the focus of this diary.

Like the first, it allows them to wreak havoc with impunity.

This is a hard diary to write, but here I am.  I love to think of myself, in my weak-ego, narcissistic whiny moments as such a peaceful and peace-loving person. Then a pebble falls in the pond and all I see are wavy, scary lines. Oh, that's me.

Seriously though, I really hold it in my heart to walk as a follower of Jesus and Lordy how I have tried. And failed. And tried again and again.

With the potential for war with Iran as one bookend and the coming anniversary of 9/11 as the other bookend, with the current national situation as the books inbetween, I must face something.

Jesus commands me to love my enemy. I guess I better start with George Bush.

No one said this would be easy. I hope you'll join me here... I need each and every one of you this time.

First, I can't believe this has not been diaried. Second, I never, ever thought I would say this but George W. Bush actually did the right thing and did it graciously, as regards this one single incident.

Don't believe me? Well, I don't blame you, but take the jump and see what you think.

It is said that by the time movie and television producers notice that a trend exist, the trend in question has already evaporated like the morning dew.

Such is the case with cable television's fascination with housing prices. Shows like Flip This House, House Flippers, My House is Worth What and Property Ladder dot the cable television schedules. The premise of all these shows is remarkably similar: there's a lot of money that you can get out of your house by doing updates. The additional money will allow you to purchase an even bigger home that you can flip for even more money.

Saying that the sentence of former Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. "Scooter" Libby was excessive, President Bush granted a degree of clemency by dropping the entire jail sentence imposed by the judge in the case.

The whole essence of the case was simply stated by Federal Prosecutor Fitzgerald: There was evidence that someone in the administration purposely disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA agent, and that Libby lied to a Grand Jury to prevent the disclosure of that act of treason. After a lengthy trial, Libby was convicted of lying to cover up that very serious crime and blocking efforts by the Justice Department to expose those involved. More...

When President Bush met with 50 high school students on Monday, he had no idea he was about to experience something as profound as it is rare: a direct, unequivocal criticism of his policy:

A group of high school Presidential Scholars visiting the White House on Monday surprised President Bush by slipping him a handwritten letter pleading with him not to let America become known for torture and urging him to stick to the Geneva Conventions with terror detainees.

[SNIP]

Since it's rare that Mr. Bush ever sees groups that have not been prescreened to be nice to him, he made the mistake of opening the letter in front of the students and was surprised to learn that he has made many Americans ashamed by subverting values that the country has always held dear, like abiding by the Constitution and respecting human dignity.

Mari Oye from Wellesley, Mass., who is headed to Yale in the fall, handed W. the letter signed by 50 students as they posed for a group picture.

[SNIP]

"We asked him to remove the signing statement attached to the anti-torture bill, which would have allowed presidential power to make exemptions to the ban on torture," she said. "I really feel strongly about this issue and also about the treatment of some Arab- and Muslim-Americans after Sept. 11th."

The president was trying to talk to the students about No Child Left Behind. Maybe that program's working better than we thought, if these kids are able to pull off such a knowing note left behind.

[Excerpt of today's op-ed column by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times - payment required.]

50 high school students pulled off what hundreds of politicians have been unable or unwilling to do: they walked right up to the President of the United States and they spoke truth to power.

Kudos to these brave young men and women.  And may we all have the courage to follow their example.

[More coverage from the AP (via The Washington Post).]  

Have Dobson, Falwell, Bush and company driven people away from the church, away from God?  The data seem to say that the Religious Reich has doubled the number of athiests in America.  More below...