Awww - is his widdle feewings hurt?

CNN reports that

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday he was offended by Amnesty International's condemnation of the United States for what it called "serious human rights violations" at Guantanamo Bay.

"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," he said in an interview that aired Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

My first reaction is too f'ing bad, but I think it's more important to notice that going out of your way supposedly to dismiss something - after saying he didn't take AI seriously, "The Big" went on to hyperbolize that the US has "liberated more people ... than any other nation in the history of the world" and to call the charges about Gitmo "peddling lies" - is actually to admit to its importance. Despite his attempt at an attitude of flip unconcern, it seems obvious that Amnesty's "scathing" criticism of the US has hit a nerve and the administration has given thought to how it will try to recover.

But Amnesty International is not a group to back down in the face of official blathering.

[William] Schulz[, executive director of Amnesty International USA,] responded to Cheney's comments: "It doesn't matter whether he takes Amnesty International seriously.

"He doesn't take torture seriously; he doesn't take the Geneva Convention seriously; he doesn't take due process rights seriously; and he doesn't take international law seriously.

"And that is more important than whether he takes Amnesty International seriously."

You go, guy.

Footnote: News accounts of AI's report often don't do it justice. So try this for the flavor:

The US-led "war on terror" continued to undermine human rights in the name of security, despite growing international outrage at evidence of US war crimes, including torture, against detainees. ...

The blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in the "war on terror" continued to make a mockery of President George Bush's claims that the USA was the global champion of human rights. Images of detainees in US custody tortured in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. War crimes in Iraq, and mounting evidence of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody in other countries, sent an unequivocal message to the world that human rights may be sacrificed ostensibly in the name of security.

Amnesty, which usually uses measured language, is clearly getting fed up with the barrage of lies and the spew of evil coming out of the White House. Good for them.