Durbin Apologizes AGAIN

[ClarkUSA]

"I think when you've done something hurtful to people you have to stand up and say I'm sorry," Durbin said at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Peoria, five days after he apologized for the comments on the Senate floor.

Durbin came under fire after he quoted from an FBI agent's report in the Senate on June 14 describing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime that had no concern for human beings," the senator said.
.........

Initially, Durbin refused to apologize, but he relented as the firestorm over his remarks continued.


http://digbig.com/4dtcs

[jeff30997]

1. Apologizing for telling the truth...

What a mad world we live in.

[fooj]

2. Agreed.

peace.

[JABBS]

8. Conservative Hypocrisy on Durbin

Conservative leaders have followed a recent history of hysteria when a Democrat says something questionable, and hypocrisy when a Republican says something similar.

Conservatives were quick to jump on Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) after a June 14 speech on the Senate floor, in which he quoted from an FBI agent's report on the deplorable conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, then said: "'If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings." Durbin later apologized.

By comparison, conservatives did not roar after Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), speaking on the Senate floor May 19 said that Democratic complaints about the "nuclear option" to ban judicial filibusters are "the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me, how dare you bomb my city. It's mine."

Santorum never apologized. Nor did Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who when discussing his opposition to stem cell research last October said: "We certainly have all seen the rejections of Nazi Germany's abuses of science. As a society and a nation, there ought to be some limit on what we can allow or should allow."

And there was no uproar before, and no apology thereafter, when conservative leader Grover Norquist said in an interview earlier last year with the Jewish newspaper The Forward: "The Nazis were for gun control, the Nazis were for high marginal tax rates. Do you want to talk about who's closer politically to national socialism, the Right or the Left?"

For more on this, go to Journalists Against Bush's B.S., at http://jabbs.blogspot.com

[earthboundmisfit]

9. Great points. Wonder what'll happen when the similarities are PROVED OUT!

When it's proven that abuses DID occur which are similar to those in Nazi or Gulag camps, will Sen. Durbin get an apology from those who screamed for apology over this? Nahhhh. But it should happen.

[Jim Sagle]

3. "Shut up, shut up, just shut up!"

[Puzzler]

4. you mean...

... that:

"... when you've done something hurtful to people you have to stand up and say I'm sorry"

Hurting people? You mean like torture? Oh no, I get it... the apology is for hurting American's feelings. Ah right.

-P

[otohara]

6. It's All About US

us, us, us, me, me, me - mine, mine, mine

[DanCa]

5. Durbin your a good man but....

These folks arent christian. Forgiveness is never acceptable to them. But than again you had no reason to appoligize for in the first place,

[IndianaGreen]

7. Poor man, being battered for telling the G-U-L-A-G truth!

When is Bush going to apologize for telling his L-I-E-S?

[Adelante]

10. I think this

Durbin was genuinely hurt that his remarks were being interpreted as harming the troops. His apologies are for them. He's a good man and a good Dem.

[deutsey]

11. Yeah, and he's only earning the contempt of the Right

Great going, Durbin.

You could have used this opportunity to stand your ground and to clarify what you meant in your original comments in order to educate the public.

Kowtowing must appear easier to you, I guess.

[Jacobin]

12. Did he also wag his tail and roll over on his back

to expose his belly, in order to show that he is absolutely and completely submissive to the fascist junta?

[Disturbed]

14. Has Durbin lost all of his credibilty now?

Will any Dems except his loyal followers ever pay any attention to what he says from now on?

He framed his intial remarks on purpose. They were not spur of the moment. His remarks were in fact truthful By his continuous back tracking he is casting himself as a weak person. Apologizing for doing something wrong is admirable but doing so for telling the truth is not.

[JABBS]

15. Durbin's credibility

The right would love nothing more than for people to always associate Durbin with "DURBIN COMPARES TROOPS TO NAZIS."

It'll be up to the party, as a whole, to defend their own vigorously, and to push on the MSM the fact that Durbin wasn't comparing our troops to Nazis, but instead throwing out an if/then statement: if you didn't know this came from our FBI, then you would have thought it came from some mad regime.

Democrats should also vigorously push the fact that Republicans such as Santorum and Sessions, on the Senate floor, made similar Nazi references.

If it were me, I'd do this:

RUSSERT: Has Durbin lost all credibility by comparing the troops to Nazis?

ME: Tim, let's set the record straight. Dick Durbin was not comparing the troops to Nazis. He merely was saying how distraught he was to learn how the FBI regarded conditions at Gitmo, and asked aloud whether anyone reading that report wouldn't think it described the actions of the Nazis or a Soviet gulag, so let's not just simply buy into the Republican spin on this. Tim, Dick Durbin is a patriot. He loves this country, and the Republicans know this, too. Dick was responsible for (names two recent things Durbin did positively, with bipartisan support).

That's how I would deal with it, and I would hope our Democratic leaders are capable of doing likewise.

[deutsey]

16. Could you please apply for a job as a DNC strategist?

Please?

[JABBS]

18. Could you please ...

They don't want people like me ...

But if you want to start a petition to get me a gig replacing Chris Matthews on MSNBC, I'd be game ...

[deutsey]

20. Well, since I'm no longer a member of the Party

they probably wouldn't be too interested in me, either.

[Cocoa]

13. I agree with Charlie Brimm

Durbin received a standing ovation from most of the crowd after his speech Saturday. Charlie Brimm, 55, said Durbin's comments upset veterans, but most think his apologies are sincere.

"It took a pretty big man to come up in front of a veterans group after the comments he made just a week or so before," said Brimm, a former state VFW commander and Army veteran of the Vietnam War.

[Tinksrival]

17. Dick Durbin is a politician with a big heart

Let me tell you a story about my senator....

Back in 1985 when my husband was in the Army and we were stationed at Redstone Arsenal, he was accused of a very serious crime that he did not commit and there was no real evidence to suggest he did. But he was locked up, repeatedly interrogated, subjected to strip searches, DNA samples taken for two weeks. He was moved to Fort Campbell,Ky for an additional four weeks while in the mean time our quarters were searched twice, I lost my job because they wouldn't give me time off to go to Ft Campbell, and they released his name to the newspapers on base and also in Huntsville.
The only evidence they had was work logs that put my husband in the parking lot of the hospital at about the same time the crime took place.
But in the Army there is no bail, there is no innocent until proven guilty. You are locked up and at their mercy for due process.
Now this crime was a rape in which there most definitely was DNA evidence. My husbands family came down and we franticly did everything we could to understand the military law, politics, and procedures involved.
But we knew once the DNA testing complete he would be exonerated. After they moved him to another state and a month had gone by we were in a state of panic and my husband was suffering physically and emotionally. The Army would not give us any information on when this test would be completed. My mother in-law went back to Illinois and contacted Senator Paul Simon and back then the Congressman Dick Durbin.
After hearing my husbands story the response from Senator Durbin was immediate. I believe it was his pressure that got the military to release the results of the DNA testing which did make my husbands innocents indisputable.
The military police were under a lot of pressure in this high profile crime and for whatever reason, I believe they knew they did not have the right person in lock up but they believed it was to their advantage to delay the results of the testing, keep my husband locked up to put pressure on the victim whom had stated she didn't know her attacker. We later found that to be untrue. This was an officers wife whom had been left bound and gaged in a van in the parking lot and had laid her head on the horn till she was rescued. It turned out she did know her attacker and it was not my husband. The rest of the details I will never know, we searched for the end to this story and it just disappeared.
I am forever grateful to Dick Durbin for taking the time to listen, to care, and to act on behalf of one of his constituents. He will always be a great Senator/Congressman in my eyes.
As for our recourse, well ya can't sue the military. They tried to get rid of us by giving us the option of choosing anywhere in the world we would like to be stationed but we decided to stay and hold our heads high, demand retractions in the papers, and give my husband's CO the shit he deserves for not standing up for him. Ten months later we were done with the Army and did not look back.

[Al-CIAda]

19. Durbin, please borrow a Kleenex and stuff it in your wimpering hole. n/t

[jen4clark]

21. I got a very strong feeling

watching Durbin almost in tears at his "first" apology that he was protecting his family. The crime family in power has many ways to silence truth or dissent.

[CWebster]

22. The Clintons must be dispensing their "advice" again

It hasn't been so helpful in forging Democratic party unity and opposition. Rather it sabotages the Democrats ability to act decisively--but then- an emerging leadership with real mettle, now there's a real threat.

Durbin has nothing to apologise for--why be civil to a Nazi?

[enough already]

23. There's no point apologizing

to these assholes. It doesn't make a bit of difference. They never reciprocate. Bush doesn't apologize for lying or killing our kids. Rove doesn't apologize. Just stop already and hit the bastards harder.

[ClassWarrior]

26. Holocaust survivors are assholes and bastards??

Wow. Are you sure you're a Progressive?

NGU.

[CWebster]

27. Interesting observation

wouldn't want to sully the purity of the memory, eh?

Read this:


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/RespectingHolocaust.html


Are you sure you are a progressive?

[ClassWarrior]

28. I'm just wondering why the poster thinks Bush** and Rove are...

...Holocaust survivors.

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

24. So what's your problem with apologies to Holocaust survivors?

You got something against Holocaust survivors?

NGU.

[ElectroPrincess]

25. Nobody has Dis'd Durbin more than I in the past BUT

What is important to note at this point: the group of former Combat Veterans gave him a "standing ovation" after the second apology - to specifically the military.

Therefore, the apology was warmly accepted by the people who matter most. Rove-Co's propaganda machine can be countered by SHOWING the patriotic soldiers "forgiving" a slip of the tongue.

Blessed are the Merciful!

And no, I did not think Durbin was wrong and shouldn't have apologized in the first place. But after the Republican Noise Machine reached a maniacal frenzy and Durban caved the first time ... well, I can't disrespect him for offering this second apology that clearly WORKED as good "damage control."