Spencer Ackermann tried this morning on Morning Joe to bring common sense to the debate over the fate of the would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He rightly points out that the "freak-out factor" that a situation like this occurs.

Spencer: I really don't understand the argument because every single time we have a new emergency, we have to forget about the hard lessons we've learned in the past about this. And then secondly, by every standard you've seen so far in every piece of reporting, the guy cooperated. He immediately said he was a member of al-Qaida. He started talking in a threatening manner about how there are other attacks coming, so I'm not really sure where we make this jump to the idea that we're not getting information from the guy.

Since he's cooperating so much, what the hell. Ship him off to Gitmo, torture the shit out of him just for the hell of it.

Pat Buchanan couldn't miss out on a chance to join in the chorus of psychopathic right-wingers who have been responding with their usual grotesque visions of xenophobic hatred after the Christmas Day failed attack on Flight 253.

Buchanan: ...frankly if that means you have to deny him pain medication because he's badly burned, I think you go ahead and do that. I'm not arguing for torture, but I am...

Spencer: You just did.

Buchanan: Nobody is, but I am arguing for hostile interrogations of this fellow, because our job is to protect American lives.It's not to make sure his Miranda rights haven't been violated.

Spencer: So you're arguing for torture but with a different euphemism for it?

Buchanan: I'm arguing for the fact that this is an enemy soldier who tried to commit a mass atrocity and the idea that you're treating him like some guy who held up a 7-11, it seems to me preposterous.

Spencer: Except for all of the hundreds of terrorists that we've convicted in federal courts over the years that were able to hold that were able to incarcerate successfully and that were able to get information out of. I mean, the fact is, al-Qaeda is a dangerous and really important threat, but they are also not a super army of supermen that have Muslim heat vision, and it's ludicrous to think that we should inflate how dangerous they are because that's exactly what they want.

Great points by Ackermann, but right-wing loons need to have al-Qaeda built up as the scary monster hiding underneath your beds, ready to strike you down if you go to sleep even for a minute. We can't even get a break from fearmongering, even during the holidays. Withholding pain meds in the way Buchanan speaks of is torture, and the guy has been singing like a canary. Still, right-wing talkers are spreading incredibly sick thoughts on our radio and TV airwaves.