Is there a place for civil discourse in blogs?  Or are we merely punching blindly into the darkness as if boxing an invisible opponent? I call my blog Crawling Out Of The Dark because that's what a blog is, a blog lives in relative darkness and only makes itself known through the declarations of its sole occupant, which in many cases ( not all cases, but many..)  takes the form of screams and shouts and savage slashing. One of the caveats of discourse on the internet is that you rarely know anything about the people you are engaging, and from that shelter of darkness anyone can pretend to be anything. That makes a blog a prime piece of real estate from which to launch a no-holds-barred assault.  A blog is both liberating, and debilitating.  There is no doubt at all that a major percentage of the diatribes leveled from blogs would never take place in real face-to-face conversation with the actual target of that vitriol. Simply because the blogger would not have the nerve to do it. This makes blogging as a form of communication more open to charges of being less than courageous, and of being underhanded. So what does all of this mean? It's leading up to my discourse on recent attacks against radio talk show personality Rush Limbaugh.  At the White House Correspondants Dinner the other night , which President Obama attended and spoke at, we were all treated to the disgusting comments of commedienne Wanda Sykes. She joked about Rush Limbaugh, saying he was the 20th hijacker during the attacks on the trade center and Pentagon on 9/11/2001, and in reponse to Rush Limbaugh's commentary where he stated wanting President Obama to fail in his agenda to advance socialism, Sykes retorted "I hope his kidneys fail", as a way of counterpoint to Rush Limbaugh wanting Obama to fail. And we were treated to images of President Obama chuckling and grinning at both comments. Now, it's plain to most thinking citizens that her comments about Rush Limbaugh were not funny, so it basically goes without need of comment that she blew it in a big way. We have a constitution in our country that protects commentary and speech such as Sykes made that night. She has the freedom to say what she wants, even to the point of joking about kidney failure. But she has no protected right to an audience. She has no right requiring others to listen to, or laugh at, anything she says. Our freedom to speak does not include a protected right to be heard. So she only has fame and power if other people grant her an audience. And that night, no less than the most powerful politican in the world granted her that fame and power by giving her an audience and chuckling and grinning  freely at jokes that were not jokes, let's face it, they were her personal hatered for Limbaugh on disply sheltered by a thin sheathe of a comedy routine. Given the progression of that scenario it would have been in character at that point for her to then make jokes about the killing fields in Cambodia or the ovens used to burn bodies at Auschwitz. This all begs comparison to how President Bush might have handled such a moment if it had been him at that dinner and he had heard those comments from Sykes.  Let's just say , instead of Rush Limbaugh she made comments about a Bush opponent, Barney Frank. So lets pretend she says "Barney Frank... I hope his kidneys fail!".  I don't think anyone can envision President Bush, or President Reagan, laughing or even smiling at all at such comments. But President Obama is no Reagan, and no Bush for that matter. Obama campagined on a platform of bipartisanship, of bringing the country together, in a new day of hope and change for a better future.  Is laughing at jokes about a decent hard working private US citizen, as being in collusion with the terroists who attacked the country on 9/11, who is actually guilty of nothing more than presenting his political analysis and an occassional football analogy on the radio, a way of bringing us closer together as a nation and ending the partisan bickering? Is that Hope and Change you can believe in? Rush Limbaugh, like you, and like me, and like a lot of people wants what is best for the country. But unlike  me, and unlike a lot of people, Rush does not have to work, does not need to be on the radio every day in order to pay the bills, and could retire any time he wants and live in luxury for the rest of his life, and avoid all the hate and all the savage attacks on his character and God only knows what else that we never hear about that he has to put up with. Rush Limbaugh asked a question on his radio show today.  He asked everyone who was listening "Why is Dick Cheney doing what he is doing..., exposing himself to the attacks and hate and vitriol of the press and the liberal bloggers and the left wing militant groups?" He asked this because, Dick Cheney ( former Vice President in the Bush Administration ) has a great amount of personal wealth, he's not in great physical health and probably has been advised to take it easy these days,  and doesn't need to do the media circus, he's not selling any books, he's not promoting anything. So why is Dick Cheney going on the air and talking to the media so frequently lately about things like the success of methods used to interrogate some of the terrorists at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba? Because he is a patriot, and is worried about the safety of our country and is very concerned about the direction that Obama has been taking the nation. In this way, both Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney are alike. Neither one has a need to expose themselves daily to the vicious personal attacks they get as they strive to make thier voices heard, they do so because to men like these it's worth the struggle.  President Obama has apologized lately around the world to allies and enemies for what he called United States greed and arrogance and talked about how terrible we are because of slavery and unfairness to the American Indian and so on. His so called "apology" tour. With all the apologizing Obama has been doing for percieved trangressions of our country, one has to wonder if he will also apologize to the world, or at least to Rush Limbaugh for laughing and smiling at Sykes as she joked about wanting Rush Limbaugh's kidneys to fail. Somehow I doubt we'll be hearing that apology from him anytime soon.

- Mike Silverman 

President Obama, a man who loves to make his own country look as bad as he can, has approved of the release of documents detailing interrogation methods used on terror suspects. There are many good, decent, honest citizens living in our country with great respect for our land and the law.  Personally, I do respect the law, and strive never to break it, the worst I've ever broken the law is when I got a ticket for going through a red light, and I will admit to speeding anywhere from 5 to 10 miles an hour above posted limits.  While I always do my best to abide by the law..., if it comes down to having to make a choice ..., I would say that I love and respect the freedom and life of my fellow countrymen more than I love and respect the exact letter of the law of the land, and so my view is in that regard when it comes to interrogation of captured terrorists or suspects. For the sake of moving past the surface debate, I will concede the point of view of those who wish to call interrogation methods like waterboarding torture.  For me, it's irrelevent in that matter. For me, if it comes down to being the only remaining option then I don't care if our CIA or military have to skin the captured "combatants"  alive to get them to cough up information. And if they don't... and they die while being "tortured" ... then that's one less vile beast out roaming the wilderness who will try sinking its fangs into my neighbors and family or blow up one or more of our courageous soldiers on the battlefield. Should the law be changed to allow torture of captured terrorists if other methods of interrogation fail?  Absolutley. The sooner the better. Should torture be an option now to potentially be used on captured terrorists and terror suspects, while the law technically forbids it?  Absolutely, if that's what it takes. But those who do so while it is illegal, should be prepared to take the potential risk of being tried and imprisoned for breaking the law.  And I am certain the list of volunteers willing to take that chance would be long enough to encircle the globe. For his part, Obama at least did the right thing in saying there would be no prosecution of those who already engaged "torture" interrogations. Obama calls it a "dark and painful chapter in our history" while ignoring how it saved lives and that is was never the first option.   I have seen enough unclassified material on the results of intelligence gained through "torture" to feel confident it has worked enough times successfully, not in every case, but then we have experts in the field of interrogation who should be able to determine the candidate on whom it would work best and , of course,  it should only be used as a last resort.  When all other methods of gaining intelligence have failed, and only when there is substantive reason to believe the individual facing it has covert knowledge that can save our lives. And just to be very clear, this is in regard to captured "combatants" at Guantanamo prison who, in my humble opinion, do not, and should not,  fall under the protection of the US Constitution or the Geneva Convention. 
 

- Mike Silverman