[STUDENT]: First off, Mr. Ashcroft, I’d like to apologize for the rudeness of some of my fellow students. It was uncalled for–we can disagree civilly, we don’t need that. (round of applause from the audience, and Ashcroft smiles) I have here in my hand two documents. One of them, you know, is the text of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which, point of interest, says nothing about “lasting physical damage”…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) Do you have the Senate reservations to it?

[STUDENT]: No, I don’t. Do you happen to know what they are?

ASHCROFT: (angrily) I don’t have them memorized, no. I don’t have time to go around memorizing random legal facts. I just don’t want these people in the audience to go away saying, “He was wrong, she had the proof right in her hand!” Because that’s not true. It’s a lie. If you don’t have the reservations, you don’t have anything. Now, if you want to bring them another time, we can talk, but…

[STUDENT]: Actually, Mr. Ashcroft, my question was about this other document. (laughter and applause) This other document is a section from the judgment of the Tokyo War Tribunal. After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan. Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. And among the tortures listed was the “water treatment,” which we nowadays call waterboarding…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question. I don’t mind, but it’s not a question.

[STUDENT]: It will be, sir, just give me a moment. The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, “the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach.” One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information. Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country–exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do–do you believe that his sentence was unjust? (boisterous applause and shouts of “Good question!”)

ASHCROFT: (angrily) Now, listen here. You’re comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. We don’t do anything like what you described.

[STUDENT]: I’m sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone’s face and pouring water down their throat…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring! Pouring! Did you hear what she said? “Putting a cloth over someone’s face and pouring water on them.” That’s not what you said before! Read that again, what you said before!

[STUDENT]: Sir, other reports of the time say…

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of “Answer her fucking question!” from the audience) Read it!

[STUDENT]: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!

[STUDENT]: “The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach.”

ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that? You hear it? “Forced!” If you can’t tell the difference between forcing and pouring… does this college have an anatomy class? If you can’t tell the difference between forcing and pouring…

[STUDENT]: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano’s sentence was unjust? Answer the question. (pause)

ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It’s not a fair question; there’s no comparison. Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

LIMBAUGH: “Save the — keep the troops safe” or whatever. I — it’s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER: No, it’s not, and what’s really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

Here you have Rush, who got out of serving in Vietnam ’cause he had a boil on his ass, calling American war veterans “phony soldiers” because they oppose a war that Bush-republicans support and, of course, there’s no one in the traditional media calling Bush-republicans out on their hypocrisy.

Remember, this week Bush-republicans forced a vote in Congress condemning the MoveOn ad that, rightly, pointed out how General Petraeus acted as a political operative for the Bush administration when the General appeared before Congress.

Well, I think John Amato has it right:

I’m calling on the Senate to pass an amendment or uphold their latest one and condemn Rush Limbaugh’s cowardly acts on our troops! Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne in Iraq wrote a NY Times op-ed — criticizing the war in Iraq, and had the bravery to suggest that it was time to develop an exit strategy. Two of them just died. Are they phonies, Rush? Where’s the “sense of the Senate” on this outrage?

UPDATE: This is more like it… from Congressman John Hall:

Dems ARE condemning Rush Limbaugh for his repeated attacks against our service members. Enough is enough.

I know that there is a back and forth about whether another condemnation is worth the time. I happen to believe it is in this case. Therefore, I’m introducing a resolution that shows emphatically that Congress will not condone ad hominem political attacks on U.S. troops. On Monday, I’m introducing legislation to express the Sense of Congress that this body rejects and condemns Limbaugh’s heinous remarks, and will continue to engage in a debate on ending our involvement in Iraq that eschews character-based attacks on our Armed Forces. Hopefully, this will end the back and forth so we can focus our efforts on ending the war.

Yes, WE: grassroots, netroots, the wild-eyed Washington-outsiders — no matter the label –, we’ve progressed light-years from where we were just a short three years ago. During that time the collective efforts of the grassroots helped elect Howard Dean to the Chair of the DNC and, in 2006, we were the boots on the ground that elected a Democratic majority to the House and Senate.

And, today, the Washington Post — the Beltway’s paper of record — has allowed two of OUR best voices to talk back to the Kool Kidz. Markos and Susan, of DailyKos.com, have an editorial piece responding to the DLC’s threat to the Democratic presidential nominees that they best not get too close to the party’s grassroots, for fear that we’ll scare off some imaginary voter that, according the DLC, resides in the "vital center."

Markos and Susan waste no time in laying out the DLC’s trite and stale arguments:

A new day is dawning for the progressive movement. The distrust between Net-roots activists and more traditional progressive players in the party establishment and issue groups has given way to respectful cooperation as we all adjust to new technologies and the promise they hold for institutional change.

Last week, at the YearlyKos convention, all these players came together to celebrate our newfound unity and to organize for the coming battles in 2008 and beyond. The DLC was nowhere to be found — unless you looked in Nashville, where its members continued to preach, in empty halls, about the “vital center.” Even the Democratic presidential candidates have figured out where the heart of the party now lies: with the new, unashamedly progressive movement.

The DLC had two decades to make its case, to build an audience and community, to elect leaders the American people wanted. It failed.

The grassroots now have a seat at the table, even as establishment insiders, like the DLC, would prefer that we were seen but not heard.

UPDATE: Markos and Harold Ford, Jr., of the DLC, went head-to-head on Meet the Press today.

Obama won with his freshness
Hillary won with her presence
Dodd won with his hair
Biden won with his yelling
Kucinich won with his wife
Richardson won with his um diplomacy?
Gravel won a straight jacket…

But Edwards is gonna take it with this….

And I must agree… that’s the sort of talk I want to hear from the Democractic nominee.

Netroots ’06 candidate Gary Trauner (WY-AL) visited D.C. last week, and spoke to the Democratic Caucus on Iraq. He reports back in a diary to us:

I had the opportunity last week to spend some time in DC with the Democratic House Caucus as they debated the Iraq Supplemental bill.  In fact, I was given the opportunity to speak to the Caucus for a few minutes.  Against the advice of several "consultants" who wanted me to just show up, be bland and ask for financial support, I couldn’t let this golden chance slip by without giving them my take on the Iraq situation from a different angle….

I told our Dem Representatives that perhaps we should use the language of the free market so often used by Republicans and their corporate sponsors. The way I see it, Congress is the Board of Directors of the largest, most important enterprise in the history of the world – the United States of America – and the President is the CEO. But he’s a weak CEO surrounded by a bad management team. In these circumstances, there isn’t a company worth it’s salt in America where the Board should not step in to set strategic, and sometimes tactical, parameters. In fact, in these circumstances, any Board has a fiduciary obligation, a responsibility, to its shareholders – in this case, every American citizen – to intervene with purpose, decisiveness and conviction to change the strategic course of the organization. If we’ve learned anything from the recent corporate scandals at Enron, MCI, etc., it should be that while some of the scandals arose from bad people purposefully doing bad things, these corporate frauds were enabled largely because of ineffective Board oversight and unconscionable Board inaction.

In the business world, strong Board action in the face of a ineffective CEO/management team that is pursuing a rigid and ill-planned strategy isn’t micromanaging – its called good governance.  And, in my view, it‘s good politics.

I can tell you that the arguments I heard in the Dem House Caucus were by and large impassioned and heartfelt.  And leadership is working hard to come up with a solution.  But here in the west, after knocking on nearly 20,000 doors across Wyoming last year, I KNOW that people want straight talk and a Representative who will stand up for his/her convictions.

This is Congress’ chance to show the American people that they have the courage to hold others accountable, and that they have the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing regardless of political calculation.

That’s an important message for our Blue Dogs to hear. Gary ran in the reddest of the Red States–Wyoming. If the people in Wyoming think it’s time for the President’s hands to be tied on this war, maybe it is.

I just came across these incredible images over at DailyKos.com. The diarist, JohnnyGunn, introduces the images thus:

When we think of America during the Great Depression, we often picture it in shades of grey.  It was a grim era and nearly all of the photographs we see are in black and white.

[...]

Color presents an entirely different image.

[...]

As the 1930s came to a close, Kodak came out with Kodachrome film – the first commercially viable color film available to the general public.  In 1937 and 1938, the colors were still not stable and accurate, but by 1939 Kodachrome was producing color images of remarkable precision.

He’s right. In color, that no-less grim period seems hopeful and the future brighter.

Read JohnnyGunn’s diary, it’s a compelling presentation of pre-WW II America — and he’s got a lot more pictures, too.

The incoming Democratic chairman [Rep. Charles B. Rangel] of the House Ways and Means Committee said yesterday that he will push to renew the military draft, as lawmakers in both parties sharpened their criticisms of the situation in Iraq and struggled for consensus and solutions.

Rep. Rangel explains his motivations for reinstating the draft:

"There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way," said Rangel, a Korean War veteran. "If we’re going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can’t do that without a draft."

And, given the following, Rep. Rangel is clearly on to something:

With Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) “calling for resuming the draft to spread the burden of military service across society,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution notes that Congress itself illustrates the same gap.

“Only about 10 percent of the members elected to Congress for the first time this year are military veterans, according to a survey by the Military Officers Association of America. In all, only about one in four members of the new Congress will have served in the military — down from half in 1991 and three-quarters a decade earlier.”

The decline in military experience among members of Congress reflects the fading of the World War II generation — where most of the men served — and the decades that have passed since the end of the Vietnam War and the nation’s last military draft.

“The number of veterans in the House peaked in 1977-78, when about 80 percent of the members had military experience, said Strobridge. The peak in the Senate was in 1983-84, when 75 percent were veterans.”

As I mention at the start, all this talk about the draft has gotten a lot of people around the blogsphere chatting about the topic, its consequences and how we can address the current lack of service inequalities illustrated by the paragraphs quoted above.

A diarist over at DailyKos.com suggest that we should reinstate the draft, along with a slew of "public service corps" for those that don’t want to serve in the military.

If there’s a draft I would ONLY support it if everyone had to serve in the military in some capacity. I would not support the draft if draftees could serve their time in one of the "service corps" that the DailyKos diarists suggests; because the mechanism that the diarists suggests opens the door to abuse by those that wish to dodge serving during a time of war and, too, the "service corps" alternative offers a way for politicians to skirt the political consequences of an aggressive foreign military policy (just like we have now, where the consequences of foreign wars are not widely felt across our country nor by the political elite because they don’t have "skin in the game").

Of course, there are those that would object to serving in the military because of religious or other moral reasons, and for those individuals there would be an option to serve in a non-combat role within the military. But the point, though, is that everyone would wear the uniform and be exposed to the sort of discomforts that come with serving in the military — which, quite simply, are not the same sort of discomforts that one is exposed to in any other type of organization.

Of course, having everyone serve in the military would create a large and ready resource available to tackle some of our ongoing domestic concerns. Consequently, a peace time military with a large number of draftees could be used at home to do many of the things that the DialyKos diarists suggest: clean up and rebuild our crumbling cities and towns; work with patients in rural areas with poor medical service; work with conservation issues; etc. My point is that the draft is only fair if everyone is obligated to serve through the military; otherwise we will not be addressing the very problem that the current "draft reinstatement" discussion seeks to address, that is: making sure that our military is used more responsibly by our political elite by ensuring that the costs of not doing so are felt widely by the American public.