Colbert Wraps Up Wright Coverage
Scalia Said Torture Cruel and Unusual in 1992 Supreme Court Opinion
Here’s the portion of Scalia’s 60 Minutes interview in which he says torture does NOT violate the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment:
Scalia: “Whose in favor of [torture]? Nobody … Everything that is hateful and odious is not covered by some provision of the constitution … Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? … Anyway, that’s my view and it happens to be correct.”
He says, “Has anybody referred to torture as punishment?” Well, let’s see.
I would direct the Court’s attention to Hudson v McMillian. In this Supreme Court decision, Scalia joined in a dissent with Clarence Thomas in which they said the 8th Amendment did not apply to treatment of prisoners but merely to their sentences UNLESS THERE WAS SOME SORT OF SADISTIC BEHAVIOR (ahem):
Nowhere does [a prior opinion] even hint that the Clause might regulate not just criminal sentences but the treatment of prisoners. Scholarly commentary also viewed the Clause as governing punishments that were part of the sentence…
Surely prison was not a more congenial place in the early years of the Republic than it is today; nor were our judges and commentators so naive as to be unaware of the often harsh conditions of prison life. Rather, they simply did not conceive of the Eighth Amendment as protecting inmates from harsh treatment.
However, the dissent goes on to say:
From the outset, thus, we specified that the Eighth Amendment does not apply to every deprivation, or even every unnecessary deprivation, suffered by a prisoner, but only that narrow class of deprivations involving “serious” injury inflicted by prison officials acting with a culpable state of mind.
When an official uses force to quell a riot, we said, he does not violate the Eighth Amendment unless he acts “ ‘maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.’ ”
Is that not the definition of torture? “Acting maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm?”
Of course it is. That’s why the very reasoned opinion by Thomas (in which Scalia joined) makes the following statement:
That is not to say that the injury must be, or always will be, physical. “Many things-beating with a rubber truncheon, water torture, electric shock, incessant noise, reruns of ‘Space 1999’-may cause agony as they occur yet leave no enduring injury. The state is not free to inflict such pains without cause just so long as it is careful to leave no marks.” Williams v. Boles, 841 F.2d 181, 183 (CA7 1988). Surely a prisoner who alleges that prison officials tortured him with a device like the notorious “Tucker Telephone” described by Justice BLACKMUN, ante, at 1003, has alleged a serious injury.
So perhaps Mr. Scalia would like to clarify why he believes that torture does not violate the 8th Amendment when his own holdings would have us believe otherwise.
Gingrich: Wright Did it To Get Even with Obama
This is a terrific interview with Newt Gingrich and Stewart discussing Jeremiah Wright. You hear the full arguments that both sides believe about this issue in a well thought out, meaningful manner instead of an angry discourse.
Gingrich: Wright was in a sense getting even with Obama and that there was a level of anger … Obama had literally no choice … I think his [Obama's] campaign is extraordinary. The message he offered of hope and idealism and change was a very powerful message and this … begins to reduce him to being a politician … Reverend Wright in many ways is a very complex American.
The Fonz Endorses Obama
Henry Winkler says of Obama:
I think I’m an Obama guy. You can not be that articulate that often and not have it on the ball. People say we need “experience,” but intelligence and passion are what we need to fix this country again after what they’ve done to it.
Hillary on O’Reilly Wed Night
O’Reilly says it’s the toughest interview Clinton has ever down (not that there’s any self promotion in saying that). As Politico.com points out, Reverend Wright was a big part of the interview. Of course! It gives FOX the chance to mention his name again and it also gives them the chance to see Hillary squirm.
I can’t stand O’Reilly, but read this transcript of the interview and see how well he puts the screws to her and gets her to admit her outrage at Wright and in the next breath admit that she should feel sorry for Obama.
O’REILLY: Can you believe this Reverend Wright guy? Can you believe this guy? What do you think?
CLINTON: Well, you know. Well, I’m going to leave it up to voters to decide.
O’REILLY: No, but what do you think as an American? You’re an American.
CLINTON: Well, what I said when I was asked directly is that I would not have stayed in that church.
O’Reilly: No, no, no. You’re an American citizen. I’m an American citizen. He’s an American citizen, Reverend Wright. What do you think when you hear a fellow American citizen say that stuff about America? What do you think?
CLINTON: Well, I take offense at it. I think it’s offensive and outrageous.
O”REILLY: I feel sorry for Barack Obama. Honestly. I feel sorry for him. His whole campaign has been derailed by some loony guy. Isn’t that amazing?
CLINTON: Well, he spoke out forcefully yesterday, and–
O’Reilly: “Do you feel sorry for Obama?”
CLINTON: Well, I think that he made his views clear, finally, that he disagreed. And I think that’s what he had to do.
The interview airs at 8pm/ET
How Many Angels Dance on the Head of a Pin
Speaking of “Primary Colors”… I’m reminded of a strange comment Hillary made a while back when she was asked about Bill’s work for the Colombian government to garner support for a trade agreement Hillary opposes.
I always wondered about that angels on the head of a pin reference. Then I remembered this scene from “Primary Colors”:
Stanton: If Picker hadn’t of quit he’d of won the nomination, gone down and taken the party with him. It was only a question of when.
Henry: And how and who pushed him off the cliff.
Stanton: That’s right, but those are fine points, Henry. Those are how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin point. This is hardball. Now you’re telling me you just discovered that and you don’t have the stomach for it. I know you better than that. We spent too much time together. This is it Henry. This is the price you pay to lead.
The scene might as well be Hillary talking about Barack Obama.
Bill Says Hillary Stayed Positive in Pennsylvania
I guess Bill felt as though Jeremiah Wright was stealing his thunder as worst campaign surrogate. Just in time to make up for his lackluster performance, he makes this statement, from ABC News:
“Most of what people have said in this campaign is wrong, including who’s been more positive and who’s been more negative,” the former president told a crowd of more than 2,500 in Boone, N.C. “She’s talked relentlessly about the solutions. She won in Pennsylvania after being hit with negative ad after negative ad after negative ad, and negative letters. And all she did was respond. She won being outspent three to one because the people knew she was in it for them.”
To quote the New York Times after Hillary’s “victory” in Pennsylvania:
On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.
I sure hope Bill’s small town tour of North Carolina provides more fodder the rest of the week. His job is to play up the “Bubba” personality and that’s always the one that gets him in trouble (with the ladies, with his wife, with all of America). It’s nice to remember that while Hillary criticizes Obama for choosing Reverend Wright as his pastor, she’s the one who chose Bill as her husband. A bit more of an intimate relationship. Well, maybe not…
This is one of my favorite “Bubba” scene from “Primary Colors” – the Mommathon:
Barack Chalk Jayhawk Becomes One of Roy’s Boys
The least he could’ve done would be wear a KU National Championship T-Shirt! (Everyone knows that KU made North Carolina what it is today). Even Roy wore a Jayhawk during the National Championship game. I’ll bet Obama has Jayhawk practice shorts on underneath his sweats. He can’t be blatant about his preference for KU while trying to win the North Carolina primary. As an aside, Roy still looks depressed.
From USA Today:
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — For all his basketball skills, Barack Obama was out of his league.
The Democratic presidential candidate played hoops with the University of North Carolina team on Tuesday, a Final Four squad that cut the 46-year-old some slack.
“These guys move very fast,” puffed Obama, as he raced up and down the court with the much younger and much bigger college players, many of whom dwarfed the 6-foot-2 Obama.
The Illinois senator is a workout enthusiast, and basketball is his chosen game. He decided to open his day with the Tar Heels, including star Tyler Hansbrough, a 6-foot-9 All-American who spent part of his morning guarding Obama.
I wonder if Hansbrough shut down Obama the way Darrell Arthur did him in the Final Four?
Obama "Outraged" by Wright’s Remarks
Exactly what he needed to say.
From CNN:
(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama said he is “outraged” by comments his former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made Monday at the National Press Club and “saddened by the spectacle.”
“I have been a member of Trinity Church since 1992. I have known Rev. Wright for almost 20 years,” he said at a news conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago.”
Obama said he is outraged by Wright’s remarks that seemed to suggest the U.S. government might be responsible for the spread of AIDS in the black community, and his equation of some American wartime efforts with terrorism.
“What particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing,” said Obama, who added that Wright had shown “little regard for me” and seemed more concerned with “taking center stage.”
Earlier this year, some of Wright’s outspoken sermons, circulated and widely discussed on the Internet and on television, became an issue in the Democratic presidential race because of the former pastor’s ties to Obama.
In one sermon, Wright said America had brought the September 11, 2001, attacks upon itself. In another, he said Sen. Hillary Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white.
Obama gave a speech on race relations during the height of the controversy with Wright and said he rejected Wright’s racially charged comments but could not repudiate the man himself.
“I cannot prevent him from making these remarks,” but “when I say I find these comments appalling I mean it. It contradicts what I’m about and who I am … It is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.”
In a break with previous comments, Obama focused his criticism on Wright the man, and not simply his remarks.
Obama said he gave Wright “the benefit of the doubt” before his speech on race relations.
“What we saw yesterday from Rev. Wright was a resurfacing and, I believe, an exploitation of these old divisions,” Obama said.
He said he had not spoken with Wright since the minister’s Monday speech, though he would not rule out a conversation with him in the future.
