My good friend E. over at the Dave has some tough words for Dick Durbin following the Senator's claims of Nazism in the American military's treatment of prisoners at Gitmo (centering largely around the use and subsequent non-use of air conditioners and the playing of rap music):

somebody get me dick durbin on the phone. i don't even HAVE air conditioning, and my apartment has been scorching for the last several days. perhaps he could pol pot-ize my landlord on the senate floor and get the whole nation aware of my own private gulag, and i'll finally see some relief. i'll even let him know that last year the people across the street used to play REALLY LOUD MUSIC WITH IMPUNITY!!!

But hold on just a second!

This Dick Durbin is a distinguished man. Why, this is the same senator who, according to his own list of accomplishments 'Publicly exposed and investigated a decision by Smithsonian officials to move an exhibit on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the main level of the National Museum of Natural History to the basement.'

Sounds like fascism to me! We can't have museum curators rotating their holdings! Not in my America. And by gum not in Dick Durbin's either.

But it doesn't end there. He's accomplished so much more: he 'Requested a GAO report,' and even 'Secured language in the transportation appropriations bill to allow 24-hour pharmacies to have their name or logo posted on informational signs at interchanges on interstate highways, advising motorists that they can find pharmacy services nearby that are open to the public at all hours.'

For shame, E. Though it was kind of you to note the support the Senator has received from certain respected quarters of the news media:

yesterday i mentioned a little something about sen. dick durbin and his long, strange trip into the ethereal regions of hyperbole and, well, lying. i gather he doesn't intend to apologize. for this ridiculous move, he will perhaps come under some fire in the US.

but al jazeera sure loves it!

so he's got that going for him.

In all seriousness though James Lileks read the same article as the good Senator with a very different reaction (closer to E.'s). But noone screeds like Lileks screeds, so away we go ...