Ever been engaged in a debate with someone and a third party, whose opinion you totally don’t respect, weighs in on your side?
Like, say, on Thanksgiving you’re discussing legalizing marijuana with your father-in-law and your crazy Uncle Lester, who listens to Alex Jones and wears a rebel flag belt buckle, chimes in with…
“I smoked plenty of weed back in my day...”
Former George W, speechwriter Marc Thiessen has graced us with such a moment....
“Marc Thiessen was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2004 to 2009, and he has defended waterboarding — but even he thinks the Senate health care bill is “morally reprehensible.” In his latest for the Washington Post, where he is a weekly columnist, Thiessen condemns the bill: “Paying for a massive tax cut for the wealthy with cuts to health care for the most vulnerable Americans is morally reprehensible.”
“If Republicans want to confirm every liberal caricature of conservatism in a single piece of legislation, they could do no better than vote on the GOP bill in its current form,” writes Thiessen, who is also currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
In his 2010 book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, Thiessen notoriously defended waterboarding for what he believes is its role in combating terrorism. He has also argued in favor of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, which the United Nations has deemed torture, in multiple Post columns. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has reiterated that torture does not work, and “even if torture did work, that does not make it legally or morally acceptable.”
I feel ya Marc, I reeally do.
And it’s not like I don’t appreciate your tryin’ to help.
But torture and bad legislation, even Mitch McConnell’s bad legislation, are not really items you want to compare.
Both are morally reprehensible, I’ll grant, but only one is against international law.
Now take your highball back over to the football game, Uncle Lester.
I got this.