Malarkey Purge

Back in October I discouraged people in Michigan from voting for Carl Levin, because he had just voted for the Wall Street bailout.  This was the bailout voted down by the House of Representatives, then pushed through the Senate, and then pushed through the House again.  I also discouraged everyone from voting for McCain and Obama for the same reason.  I still firmly believe that this bailout was a rash and problematic reaction to our economic issues and that no responsible elected official should have assisted in getting it forced into affect.  That bailout and the more recent bailout were not about partisan politics, because as I noted with the McCain and Obama example, both republicans and democrats supported these bailouts.  This point is strengthened by the fact that the initial bailout was under the W. Bush administration and the recent bailout was under the Obama administration.
Now back to Carl Levin, who has recently began to redeem himself by my fiercely judgmental standards.  Former Vice President Cheney and his daughter continually claimed that there are classified CIA documents that prove water-boarding prisoners saved lives.  Carl Levin is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which means he sees these classified documents.  Senator Levin at the Foreign Policy Association annual dinner said, “Mr. Cheney … claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked, but those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of abusive techniques.”  I’m glad Senator Levin realized that it is his obligation to state this information under these circumstances.  He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who publicly volunteers useful information on a regular basis, but at least this one time when he was one of the few people who could call someone on such heinous malarkey he did it.
So I must thank Senator Levin for doing his job.  If he keeps it up, I might support him / vote for him if I’m a Michigan resident during his next election.
Lastly to fully purge this malarkey I must make a final point regarding this water-boarding situation.  Even if there were documents that proved everything Cheney claims is great about torture, that doesn’t justify breaking the Geneva Convention.  The US has agreed to certain international treaties, such as the ones of the Geneva Convention. These help prevent a third world war. John McCain, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ understand that torture is unethical and the United States constitution protects people from cruel and unusual punishment: so the effectiveness of water-boarding is not an issue.  Apparently former Vice President Cheney is trying to talk his way out of getting prosecuted.