GOP Talking Point of the Day

It didn't take long listening to talk radio today to determine that the GOP talking points of the day (regarding the torture memos released last week) were about "criminalizing policy differences" and the US becoming a "banana republic" if the Bush administration's torture policy is investigated. The radio talking heads were definitely on message. I heard four radio talk show hosts parroting the same line during my limited drive time listening.

But what if the policy itself (i.e., torture) is criminal?

Never mind that the U.S ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1988 under President Reagan (btw - I think that we should quit the UN and kick 'em out of New York). Never mind that our State Department prepares 'Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices' that condemn many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" described in the memos when practiced in other countries. According to the talking heads on my radio, I must either be a leftist or an Islamist terrorist sympathizer to even ask the question.

Update: Glenn Greenwald (my favorite liberal pundit) on the America as a 'banana republic' fallacy: "People like John McCain argue that only "banana republics" prosecute former political leaders, but the reality is exactly the opposite. As the Western world has spent decades pointing out, the hallmark of an under-developed, tyrannical society is the very same premise we have embraced: that political elites are free to break the law with impunity and never suffer the consequences that ordinary citizens do."