I LOVE THIS GUY! OLBERMANN SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON THE INTEGRITY OF DANIEL LEVIN

Daniel Levin. One man who Bush fired. Enough said?

When I hear words ringing clear as the ring of a bell, I get the life breathed back into my "steppped-all-over-heart" and I have freer air to breathe. Hope is such a glorious thing. For me, Bush has killed the dream to hope for this nation’s ideals. A phoenix experience, would be welcome. Mr. Olbermann gives me hope. He says what I thought I would never hear. He states rational thoughts. He articulates well. He says what most of the people I know think, but would never say it because they are less than brave.

When I hear Bush, I usually turn it off as fast as possible. If I listen to him, the oxygen gets sucked out of me. I get a physical reaction. And it is not a pleasant physical reaction. I feel repulsed. Lying has an oppressive effect on me. I feel suffocated by Bush-speak.

There is a segment of Americans, including "the Bush", "the Cheney" and their loyalists, who think torture is only wrong when some other country is doing it. They feel above the law. They feel justified to ignore the United States Constitution. They want to change the rules according to themselves.

Bush wants to be King. And we have let him. On Monday, when I originally posted this story, no one had uploaded it at Youtube. And although I provided a link Monday night to see this, here it is again via Youtube. ................................................................... ................................................................... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arWJ358tZgU
KEITH OLBERMANN SPECIAL COMMENT ON WATERBOARDING NOVEMBER 5, 2007

If like me, you never heard about Daniel Levin before, here is a link to an ABC News link about him:

Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic

Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Effort to Form Torture Policy

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/DOJ/story?id=3814076&page=1

The definition of Torture is included in this section taken from the Human Rights Watch website:

The Convention against Torture is a multinational treaty that prohibits at all times and under all circumstances the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The convention defines torture as:

any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Among other things, the convention prohibits the practice of sending persons to states where they are likely to be tortured, and the use of evidence obtained through torture. It requires that states take measures to prevent the use of torture, hold torturers accountable, and provide effective remedies for claims of torture and abuse.

The United States ratified the Convention against Torture in 1994, 10 years after its unanimous adoption by the U.N. General Assembly. The convention has been ratified by 141 countries.

The entire Keith Olbermann Special Comment can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/
as “The Levin Revelation”

Here is a major part of it...

It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed:

The Presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.

All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity;

All the invocations of World War Three, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets;

All the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists...

All of it is now -- after one revelation last week -- transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the re-focusing of our entire nation, towards keeping this mock president, and this unstable vice president, and this departed wildly self-over-rating Attorney General -- and the others -- from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country.

"Waterboarding is torture," Daniel Levin was to write.

Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protestor.

He was no troublemaking politician.

He was no table-pounding commentator.

Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American, and a brave man.

Brave not just with words or with stances -- even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared -- or bought -- off.
Daniel Levin took himself to a military base and let himself be water-boarded…

…Daniel Levin should have a statue in his honor in Washington right now.

Instead, he was forced out as Acting Assistant Attorney General, nearly three years ago, because he had the guts to do what George Bush couldn't do in a million years: actually put himself at risk for the sake of his country, for the sake of what is right.

And they water-boarded him and he wrote that even though he knew those doing it meant him no harm, and he knew they would rescue him at the instant of the slightest distress, and he knew he would not die -- still, with all that reassurance, he could not stop the terror screaming from inside of him, could not quell the horror, could not convince that which is at the core of each of us -- the entity who exists behind all the embellishments we strap to ourselves, like purpose and name and family and love -- he could not convince his being… that he wasn't drowning.

Water-boarding, he said, is torture. Legally, it is torture! Practically, it is torture! Ethically, it is torture! And he wrote it down. Wrote it down somewhere, where it could be contrasted with the words of this country's 43rd President: "The United States of America... does not torture." Made you into a liar, Mr. Bush. Made you into, if anybody had the guts to pursue it,
a criminal, Mr. Bush.

…when your people realized that even that was too dangerous, Daniel Le Vin was branded "too independent" and "someone who could (not) be counted on."

In other words,

Mr. Bush, somebody you couldn't count on to lie for you. So, Levin was fired.

…Another patriot somewhere, listened as Judge Mukasey mumbled like he'd never heard of water-boarding, and refuse to answer in words… that which Daniel Levin answered on a water-board somewhere in Maryland or Virginia three years ago.

And this someone also heard George Bush say "The United States of America does not torture"... and realized either he was lying or this wasn't the United States of America any more, and either way, he needed to do something about it.

…Ideally you should lock this government down financially until a special prosecutor is appointed -- or fifty of them -- but I'm not holding my breath. The "yes" or the "no" on water-boarding will have to suffice.

Because, remember... if you can't get it, or you won't... with the time between tonight and the next presidential election likely to be the longest year of our lives, you are leaving this country, and all of us, to the water-boards -- symbolic and otherwise -- of George W. Bush.

Ultimately, Mr. Bush, the real question isn't... who approved the water-boarding of this fiend Khalid Sheik Mohammed and two others.

It is: why were they water-boarded?

…if that's what this is all about -- you tortured not because you're so stupid you think torture produces confession -- but you tortured because you're smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction -- well, then… you're going to need all the lawyers you can find… because that crime wouldn't just mean impeachment, would it Sir?

That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.
…Daniel Levin's eminently practical, eminently logical, eminently patriotic way of testing the legality of waterboarding… has to vanish -- and him, with it.

Thus Alberto Gonzales has to use that brain that sounds like an old car trying to start on a freezing morning, to undo eight centuries of the forward march of law and government.

Thus Dick Cheney, has to ridiculously assert that confirming we do or do not use any particular interrogation technique, would somehow help the terrorists.

Thus Michael Mukasey, on the eve of the vote that will make him the high priest of the law of this land, cannot and must not answer a question, nor even hint that he has thought about a question, which merely concerns the theoretical definition of water-boarding as torture…. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/