White House double standard: Tancredo v. Durbin

BTC News White House correspondent Eric Brewer asked a question in yesterday’s White House press briefing that neatly highlighted the hypocrisy of this administration, not that that’s been an extraordinary challenge of late.

When Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin remarked on the Senate floor that an FBI memo about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo read more like something you would expect to hear in connection with the world’s worst regimes and not the US, he was the object of an immediate and enduring firestorm that resulted in an apology.

When Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo told a radio talk show host that an appropriate response to acts of terror in the US would be to “take out” Muslim holy sites, the White House reaction was somewhat more muted. In fact, it was initially non-existent and in effect remains so.

Durbin was castigated by White House power Karl Rove, the man who effectively outed CIA proliferations operative Valerie Plame and by extension her entire covert network in order to punish her husband for daring to tell the truth about the administration’s deliberate manufacturing of intelligence. White House press secretary Scott McClellan addressed Durbin’s remarks at length. Vice President Dick Cheney said he was “appalled that anybody who serves in the United States Senate would even think those thoughts.”

In his June 16 press briefing, McClellan devoted considerable time to mischaracterizing Durbin’s remarks and then smearing him for them.

I think the Senator’s remarks are reprehensible. It’s a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws. To compare the way our military treats detainees with the Soviet gulags, the Nazi concentration camps, and Pol Pot’s regime is simply reprehensible. And to suggest that these individuals — I notice comments were made that — comparing it to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. To suggest that these enemy combatants who are detained at Guantanamo Bay should be released just is simply beyond belief to me. These are dangerous individuals who were picked up on the battlefield. They were picked up on the battlefield in the fight against American forces. They were picked up on the battlefield because they are individuals who are involved in plots to do harm to the American people and to innocent civilians.

And so I just think those remarks are reprehensible and they are a real disservice to our men and women in uniform. Our men and women in uniform go out of their way to treat detainees humanely, and they go out of their way to hold the values and the laws that we hold so dear in this country. And when you talk about the gulags and the concentration camps in Pol Pot’s regime, millions of people, innocent people, were killed by those regimes.

Stern stuff. And of course Rove, in a now-famous speech to New York’s Conservative Party, accused not only Durbin but every other Democrat and liberals as well of deliberately endangering US troops.

Has there been a more revealing moment this year than when Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans had done to prisoners in our control at Guantanamo Bay with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot – three of the most brutal and malevolent figures in the 20th century?

Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

But as we now know, considerably more needs to be said about the motives of Republicans. Here’s Rove on Tancredo’s comments, which have been picked up by the press throughout the Muslim world:

Oh, wait. Rove never said a word.

Here’s Cheney on Tancredo’s comments:

Here’s Bush on Tancredo’s comments:

And here’s Scott McClellan on Tancredo’s comments, responding to Eric’s question:

Q Representative Tom Tancredo recently suggested that taking out Muslim holy sites might be a good way to fight terrorism. Now his statement has been showing up in newspapers throughout the Muslim world. Will the White House ask Mr. Tancredo to apologize and retract his statement, as it did with Senator Durbin?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I think the State Department actually addressed this issue right at the time, and they expressed the views of the administration. The President has made very clear that Islam is a religion that teaches peace, and it is a proud and great religion. And he stated his views on it.

What State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, and what remains the only official Bush administration response to the incident, is that Tancredo’s remarks were “insulting to Islam.”

I guess we periodically see, you know, remarks or comments that are insulting to Islam. And such remarks, wherever they come from, are insulting and offensive to all of us. Speaking on behalf of the United States Government, let me say that we respect Islam as a religion, we respect its holy sites, and we believe we share — the United States is a country of religious diversity that our citizens, whether they be Muslim or Christian or Jew or whatever, respect the dignity and sanctity of other religions and believe we are part of one human family and that the enemy of that family are those who use the name of religion to pursue a violent and hateful ideology that really goes against the teachings that, I think, any person of faith believes in, no matter what that faith is.

And that’s it. No condemnation, no “he’s endangering our troops,” no “he should apologize.”

But of course Tancredo should apologize, not only to Muslims but also and particularly to Americans, whom he now represents to Muslims around the world. He’s made clear he won’t apologize, claiming his words were “taken out of context.” But there is no context in which deliberately incinerating civilians is acceptable. It’s a war crime. We’ve already breached every international treaty dealing with the treatment of civilians during combat. We’ve already abrogated our duties as the occupying power in Iraq. The world knows this, and the White House refusal to demand an apology from Tancredo amounts to a tacit endorsement of those crimes and any to come.

That, Mr. McClellan, is “reprehensible.” That is a “disservice” not only to our troops, but to every American. And if terrorists recruit even one suicide bomber or “enemy combatant” on the strength of Tancredo’s words, it’s murder.

We hope the White House will reconsider its position. We also know they won’t.