To build on DougJ’s post it is worth adding that the entire “they read him his rights only 50 minutes after he was arrested” talking point turns out to be a lie.
On Fox news this Sunday it was Lindsey Graham who took up the attack with rote repetition of these failed wing-nut talking points and the entire GOP line of attack concerning that fellow with the burning underwear continues to meet FAIL after FAIL.
According to the WaPo it turns out that this lie is only off by eight hours and 10 minutes:
The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day was read his Miranda rights nine hours after his arrest, according to a detailed chronology released Sunday by senior administration officials.
Of course all of the folks who have been making this claim will rush to correct their error–and pigs will fly.
Steve Benen has some fun with this news this morning and you can too in an open thread.
Cheers
dengre
John Quixote
Doesn’t matter if it’s a lie or not. It has been repeated enough to become the ‘truth’.
GambitRF
Miranda rights are the trigger words that activate the terrorists’ secret X-men powers.
Ash
@John Quixote:
That.
Let’s not forget that that “chronology” was released by President Hussein, making it obviously forged.
Kryptik
When half the country still thinks Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet, it’s obvious that truth has little bearing on what people believe and ‘know’ in their hearts of hearts.
The truth says 9 hours. Their gut says 50 minutes and that we just doomed ourselves to another attack because of it. Truthiness prevails, because it’s what they fear most. Lets not let pesky facts get in the way.
General Winfield Stuck
There is no news. There is only stand up comedy on news channels, where truth is but a mark for the next joke. Sure, sometimes an anchor says wait a minute and everyone pauses the routine, then laughs heartily and carries on with the dubious punchline. Guess who always ends up the butt of the jokes and takes it like mice?
matt
Always. Everything.
Svensker
They are telling a lie, but the lie is the “truth” that will be remembered.
But the bigger point is, their framing has been accepted. It is “bad” that the guy was mirandized 50 minutes after arrest, but “good” that the cops had 9 hours to fuck with him before he was read his rights.
We are driven by sound bytes and war-mongering framing. Until the non-crazy non-neocon parts of the American populace can figure out how to defeat the sound bytes and the framing, we will occasionally win skirmishes but always lose the big battles.
MikeJ
The main thing this means is that they’ll have a hard time introducing anything they got from him during that first nine hours at his trial, unless of course they got him to repeat it after he was informed of his rights.
They *should* have mirandized him the second he was taken into custody.
soonergrunt
@Kryptik: This.
Zifnab
@Svensker:
I was picked up by police in a mall once as a teenager, and had the pleasure of sitting around in a security office for several hours while police and security guards tried to figure out if I actually did anything wrong. Good times.
That said, it’s not like in the movies, where three cops tackle you while reciting Miranda. And even if it was, it continues to boggle my mind as to how giving a thirty second pronouncement that every Law & Order fan knows by heart will lead the nebulous group of “terrorists” to a crushing victory.
There’s no cause and effect here. Just a lot of screaming and hand waving and Chicken Little rhetoric.
Gus
@John Quixote: Yep, which is why I’d take issue with Dennis’ characterization of this as a “failed wing-nut talking point.” It may fail the truth test, but it’s not intended to be anything more than another zombie lie. It’s serving its purpose.
gypsy howell
@MikeJ:
Exactly. I’m still amazed that any US citizen believes it is wrong to mirandize a suspect. Immediately. Upon arrest. No matter what.
What the fuck is happening to this country?
GregB
Gypsy,
It is rotting to the core baby.
Overcome by selfishness and greed.
-G
Kryptik
@gypsy howell:
It’s wrong because they’re TERRISTS! Obviously, the answer is to lock them up without trial for life or shoot them in the head. They don’t DESERVE rights. It’s not like they’re Americans after all.
….guh. How the hell do the Onion, Daily Show, and Colbert Report do it? Any attempt at satirization I do ends up as wingnut points verbatim, because they’re that freakin’ absurd.
geg6
@gypsy howell:
See Germany, Italy, and Spain circa late 1920s/early 1930s.
MikeJ
@gypsy howell:You don’t need to be informed of your rights if you don’t have any. Right wingers hate the constitution and everything that America stands for.
gwangung
Because so much of this country are authoritarian assholes who want to torture and substitute vengeance for justice.
Even when reading him his rights led him to open up and tell us more.
Too many Americans want to smash people in the face, even though they’ll get what they say they want in other ways.
Sentient Puddle
And me, I’m amazed at how near about everyone (including people here) misinterprets what the Miranda rights are, and what they’re for. They’re not something that you recite upon arresting a suspect. You say them prior to an interrogation to let the suspect know that he does not have to incriminate himself if he does not want to. If the police, for whatever reason, decide that they have enough evidence to convict you, they don’t need to read you your rights.
I don’t know, all this crap about how the Eunuch bomber was read his rights feels like such a red herring issue on both sides (though obviously Republicans are much worse here). So what if he wasn’t read his rights? You’ve got a plane full of witnesses who saw him light his balls on fire. I don’t think that interrogating him will make conviction any more likely.
Comrade Dread
In order to save the Constitution, we must destroy it.
Spork
If you get too pissed at politics, you can always come join the Balloon Juice WoW guild. It’s “Also Too”, on the Eitrigg server, just ask Robotsoul, Mazog, or Perminas for an invite.
Violet
I wonder if the tide is turning. I liked seeing VP Biden calling former VP Cheney a lair on the Sunday shows yesterday. Rachel Maddow has been on fire this week. It seems like there may be some fledging signs of the Dems not letting the Republicans lie on everything all the time and not being called on it.
I’m probably seriously optimistic, but perhaps the “Republicans are liars” label might stick a little bit. That would be way more harmful to them than anything else.
rec
It doesn’t matter if it was 9 hours or 9 seconds. These people just don’t believe in the basic principles of our justice system. The whole innocent until proven guilty thing never spoke to them really.
I mean, it’s OK to use it for criminals, since we know they’re guilty and anyway, you can tell them by the color of their skin. And if it’s one of our tribe, then they deserve all the protections money can buy. But they would rather see 100 others be falsely imprisoned then to have one guilty man walk free.
Pangloss
Unless it’s Idaho fundies trying to kidnap Haitian kids.
gwangung
@rec: In the death penalty debates, some outright admit they’d rather have 10 innocent people get killed than let 1 guilty person go. And they’ll never think it could happen to them (because they have the right skin color and background).
And they get offended when you call them a monster.
Michael
Bring on the Red Dawn. I look forward to collaborating with our Chinese, French, Russian, Latin American and Congolese UN overlords to help oppress, enslave and jail Christians, conservatives, capitalists and pundits. I especially look forward to facilitating the confiscation of guns, bibles, AM radios and radio microphones, and will gleefully be attending as many forced miscegenistic gay marriage ceremonies as I can find, at least when I’m not busy converting Southern megachurch facilities into Gaia Worship/mixed race babymaking/gay orgy centers.
Spork
Michael, you forgot the voluntary/mandatory abortion chambers. Just be calm, the re-education won’t take long.
Brachiator
Can I have Carmen Miranda rights?
Good point. The main thing here is that the GOP want to keep painting Obama as weak on terrorism, even if he had people do much what Bush did with arrested terrorism suspects.
And this stuff works with the tea baggers and those who live on fear.
On the other hand, it should be apparent that had the government thrown the Undie Bomber into Gitmo and tortured him, his family would have been both unable and unwilling to persuade him to co-operate. It is bizarre and despicable that so many wingnuts have not only been convinced of the value of the preemptive military strike, but also of the value of preemptive torture.
JGabriel
Dennis G. @ Top:
I knew it! I bet I’ve even got a post somewhere here expressing early skepticism about that claim.
Glad to see my intuition is still working, though I’d rather be able to trust the news instead — intuition not being something a rationalist likes to rely on.
.
asiangrrlMN
It would be funny if it weren’t actually true. We are all Alice in Wonderland now! Speaking of which, I cannot WAIT to see it. I only hope Tim Burton has worked out his daddy issues so he doesn’t RUIN another movie.
deadrody
Oh, that’s MUCH better. Interrogate someone for 9 hours and THEN read them their rights. Great.
I was told that if I voted for McCain that there would be more shredding of the constitution, AND THEY WERE RIGHT!!!