Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

He can write memos about torturing people, and he can talk to the media about it, but when Congress cordially invited John Yoo to testify about torture in front of the House Judiciary Committee, he's suddenly mute (h/t to Carpetbagger):

In a letter, Yoo's lawyer told Conyers he was "not authorized" by DOJ to discuss internal deliberations.

"We have been expressly advised by the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice that Professor Yoo is not authorized to discuss before your Committee any specific deliberative communications, including the substance of comments on opinions or policy questions, or the confidential predecisional advice, recommendations or other positions taken by individuals or entities of the Executive Branch," Yoo's lawyer, John C. Millian, wrote in a letter to Conyers.

Millian also noted that Yoo was involved in a lawsuit over the legal memos and that it would "not be appropriate" for him to testify while the litigation was pending.

Funny how shy they get when they realize that there might be legal consequences for breaking the law, innit?

And speaking of folks in our federal government who are a little chary about telling the truth, the Veteran's Administration may have, you know, kinda forgotten to mention just a few suicides among vets:

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Administration has lied about the number of veterans who've attempted suicide, a senator charged Wednesday, citing internal e-mails that put the number at 12,000 a year when the department was publicly saying it was fewer than 800.

"The suicide rate is a red-alarm bell to all of us," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. Murray also said that the VA's mental health programs are being overwhelmed by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, even as the department tries to downplay the situation.

"We are not your enemy, we are your support team, and unless we get accurate information we can't be there to do our jobs," Murray told Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield during the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.

How the fuck can they downplay this? By my calculation, there's an 11,200 difference between their public and private figures, and my senator's a lot better at math than I am. Note to the VA: if you're going to fudge figures, you might want to make it a little less fucking obvious.

Speaking of people who haven't mastered the art of the plausible lie, let's see how CNN's new anchor, former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, handles the truth:

April 2008: Snow told Dennis Miller that Barack Obama voted "present" upwards of 160 times in the U.S. Senate. But, OH NOES! It turns out he never did, ever, not even once!

December 2007: Snow goes before the graduation ceremony at Oklahoma Christian University and tells them that there is a "War on God" going on the United States, and that "The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country."

And maybe CNN should have vetted Snow a little better, because in the same month, Bill O'Reilly told Snow, "But you can't go over to CNN. I mean, that's the devil over there. You can't. You know. You're a religious guy. You can't go into the pagan throne over there."

July 2007: Snow assesses the surge thusly: "I think what you've seen is a declining level in the overall pace of attacks." All true, so long as by "declining" you mean to say, "Why won't they stop attacking us? Didn't we tell them that the Surge was working?"

Ooo, not too good. And The Huffington Post has much, much more! Somehow, I don't think his historic challenges with understanding reality are going to get any better now, do you?

And people wonder why I don't watch CNN anymore. It's become the Conservative No-news Network.