No Rest for the Wicked.

"Do you know why the bulldog's nose slants backwards? So that he can breathe without letting go." The German to whom Richard Burton, as Churchill, spoke these words, shifted uncomfortably.

Dick Durbin ought never to shift comfortably, ever, ever again! Blackfive prescribes The Remedy:

I think the storm is still gathering on this and still hasn't broken. Half apologies from politicians like Durbin don't amount to the will of those who've served.
And what they are going to find, to the Democrats' dismay, is that there will be an awful lot of war heroes coming home...and they just might run for office. Democrat or Republican. Independit or Libertarian.

For example, Illinois has had a lot of Soldiers and Marines deployed in the War on Terror. The Mad Ghosts (2/24 Marines) that I featured here often are from Chicago. I'm sure you'll find some of them interested in the possibilities of removing Durbin from office. Note to Illinois Republican leadership: If you EVER have to look outside of our great state for a political candidate again, then you need to be removed from leadership. Capisce?

I second that with vigor. I've had enough of elitist, out of touch halfwits masquerading as the Representatives of the People sliding by with slanders, one-eighth truths, outright lie, smears, calumny, cant, bigotry and bad humor! Fill in any names of your own choice after slander, which attaches to the Sycophant Ketchup Ichabod from Mass, (who at least has movies of himself from Vietnam, ...served in?.. .well...piss off long John!), and one-eighth-truth Teddy from the Kingdom of Nodding Off. God damn it!, there are people trying to kill us. And us would be any member of western civilization, yes, including the French; and these three day old, cold moldy potatoes of Reps and Sens have nothing decent to say, and they're saying it moment by moment, day after day. Enough!! They have no stomach for this fight, let them begone! Their condemnation and tossing out on their stoned-deaf, of neither shame nor conscience ears is just, long overdue, and will be sweet revenge. Cold.

And you Dustbin Durbin! Go back to the ash heap you climbed out of. Or better still, find some cozy spot in one of Dante's circles. That's an appropriate place for someone who 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. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

I most certainly would not have! Are you a senator, senator? You must be a senator; only a senator could believe an idea that stupid. I suppose you'd read something like this: "I ...landed face-first among a group of men who were too sick, exhausted, and weak to even move out of the way of my falling body. These men, I learned, had been there since April 9th-two days-without food or water. They were bewhiskered, ragged, and thoroughly beaten, and in serious physical condition because of continued exposure to the tropical sun. The...guards lorded it over these silent, hopeless creatures like slave masters of old, beating some and bayoneting others on the sightest provocation....Men were lying with flies buzzing around and dipping ino wounds. The captured soldiers groaned and begged for water, but the ...sentries stalked past, spitting at them." and say to yourself, hmm, sounds like Americans to me. You'd be half right, a higher score that the last time you spoke first and later still yet haven't thought. Where those little dots appear in the quote...that's where I took out the word Japs. Care to make any more guesses, Senor Durtbin? Time? Place? Island? War? Who the good guys were? You have a 50-50 chance on that last question. Even a Democratic Senator from Illinois ought to like those odds. You could even guess if you aren't sure.

And the grandchildren of those men are fighting an enemy every bit as untractable and vicious as the Japs were. Probably more so. You are supposed to put aside personal feelings and come to the defense of the liberties of the country and the warriors protecting it. Stand up and speak properly, "I was stupid and wrong. American soldiers are the defenders of liberty and justice, and only my political blindness can excuse my terrible blunder and inexcusable smear. I humbly beg your forgiveness." That would be an apology. I will not hold my breath. I will not be holding my tongue!

The book from which the quotation above was drawn is:

The War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Guase, The Firsthand Account of One of the Greatest EScapes of World War II. Major Gause and another soldier escaped from capture on Battan, and sailed in a twenty foot wooden fishing boat 3200 miles to Australia.Published by Hyperion in 1999. His son Damon L. Gause wrote the introduction, Stephen Ambrose a foreward. It's a terrific, inspiring book.