Racial Profiling?

Dick Durbin is getting whacked by conservative bloggers such as Opinion Journal's James Taranto

"Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis."

Durbin read descriptions of abusive treatment of detainees and said: "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

Says Taranto: "We are fighting an enemy that murdered 3,000 innocent people on American soil 3 1/2 years ago and would murder millions more if given the chance -- and according to Dick Durbin, our soldiers are the Nazis."

The Washington Times (which didn't see fit to front the Terri Schiavo autopsy, despite a zillion earlier Page 1 pieces) goes with the headline "Durbin Rebuked on Floor of Senate":

"The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman yesterday accused Sen. Richard J. Durbin of insulting American soldiers with a 'grievous error in judgment' by comparing U.S. treatment of al Qaeda suspects to the crimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, and demanded that the Senate's No. 2 Democrat apologize.

"The rebuke followed a similar rebuke by the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who called Mr. Durbin 'totally out of line.' "

Such criticism has sparked a passionate pushback from liberals, such as John Aravosis of Americablog:

"What I warned about a few hours ago is now coming true. The far-right slime machine is going whole hog on Senator Durbin for, oh my, telling the truth about the deplorable things we have done to prisoners in Gitmo, in violation of every concept of decency our country once stood for.

"Apparently, the Republicans who dominate the party today, on the radio, online, and in the halls of Congress, think that the only good American is a Stalinist, a Nazi, a fascist, or any other brand of totalitarian thug who beats the crap out of innocents because he can, because we're Amurrikans, God damn it, and if we want to throw you in jail for an eternity, with no lawyer and no charges, and torture you until your head explodes and you go absolutely insane, that's our right. . . .

"That's the thinking and the mantra of today's brand of Republicans who run the party and run the right-wing noise machine. The law is irrelevant, the norms of humanity are irrelevant. With God on our side -- well, the Baptist fundamentalist God on our side, thank you -- they can do no wrong. The irony is, under the form of totalitarian lawless government these right-wing extremists would wish us have, many of them would be the first to disappear."

Looks like Michael Jackson still wants to party, according to the LAT

"To thank selected fans for their allegiance during his child-molestation trial, Michael Jackson and his family plan an invitation-only bash Saturday night at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, Calif. -- although it is not clear if the self-described King of Pop will be on stage."

The New York Post has a very different lead:

"A judge yesterday ordered authorities to fork over Michael Jackson's passport and vowed to release every sealed document in the case, but the King of Pop still wants to know: Where's my porn?" The Gloved One wants his stuff back.

Jeff Jarvis, the pied piper of downloading, continues his crusade:

"The BBC is wowed at 650,000 Beethovan downloads in a week. Repeat after me: John Stewart on Crossfire got 150,000 viewers on CNN but likely more than 10 million downloads. What's more powerful: The networks that Time Warner and the BBC own or the networks no one owns? Obvious lesson to all broadcasters: Let there be downloads. All the folks who are bragging about their streams would be blown away by floods of downloads. Distribution is so yesterday."