This is the story of two Democratic senators, two decades apart.
One is my senator, Dick Durbin, who did not seek re-election this year and will leave office in January of 2027, and who has served 43 years, 13 in the House and nearly 30 in the Senate.
The other is Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who is finishing up his first term in the Senate and is seeking re-election.
This is one of those "How it started/ How it's going" kinda deals
For Senator Durbin, here's how it started. From The Congressional Record (PDF) June 16, 2005:
MR. DURBIN: I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18–24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees.
The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
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.
After being granted an additional three minutes by the presiding officer, Senator Durbin continued
MR. DURBIN: It is not too late. I hope we will learn from history. I hope we will change course. The President could declare the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the war on terrorism. He could declare, as he should, that the United States will not, under any circumstances, subject any detainee to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
The administration could give all detainees a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a neutral decision maker. Such a change of course would dramatically improve our image and it would make us safer. I hope this administration will choose that course. If they do not, Congress must step in.
And the immediate reaction from the Bush White House, from Durbin's Republican Senate colleagues and from much of the legacy media was...outrage. How dare he suggest...blah blah blah.
And Senator Durbin's initial reaction to that reaction was to stand his ground. From Al Jazeera, June 16, 2005:
US senator stands by Nazi remark
A US senator has refused to apologise for comparing the actions of US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to those of Nazis, while others have decried or defended the mandate and method used to hold prisoners there.
US Senator Dick Durbin on Wednesday refused to apologise for comments he made on the Senate floor referring to Nazis, Soviet gulags and a “mad regime” like Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Illinois Republican party chairman Andy McKenna had demanded he apologise.
“Senator Durbin’s comments come as a great disservice to our military personnel in Guantanamo,” he said.
“They are also a great disservice to all US soldiers and veterans who have fought, and continue to fight, to overcome evil regimes and spread democracy around the world.”
Durbin did not plan to apologise for the comments, spokesman Joe Shoemaker said.
“This administration should apologise to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorising torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure,” Durbin had said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
But the Democratic senators of yesteryear were not built for fights like these, so when the political and media establishments bore down on Durbin, he folded and apologized.
From Voice of America, June 22, 2005:
Senator Durbin Apologizes for Controversial Remark
A Senate Democrat has apologized for comparing the treatment of detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the interrogation tactics of the Nazis and the Soviet gulags.
The comparison made by Senator Dick Durbin, the assistant Democratic leader, last week sparked a firestorm of controversy...
The White House immediately denounced the comments as reprehensible.
Speaking to Mr. Durbin on the Senate floor days later, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner of Virginia, demanded his colleague apologize to those who serve in the U.S. military.
"To say that the allegations of a single FBI agent in an unconfirmed, uncorroborated report, give rise to coming to the floor and raising the allegation that whatever persons of the uniformed military, as referred to in that report-albeit an uncorroborated report-are to be equated with those three chapters in world history, is just a most grievous misjudgment on your part and one that I think that is deserving of apologizing to the men and women in uniform," Mr. Warner says.
Senator Warner expressed concern about the impact such comments could have as the United States wages a war on terrorism.
"We have got to be extraordinarily careful in our remarks on the floor of the Senate as they relate to the safety of our people, because this series of statements that you made here, factual references to chapters of history, can be manipulated by other people throughout the world to their advantage, and that is my deep concern," he added.
Senator Durbin responded that his comments had been misinterpreted.
"It is a comparison in relation to the form of interrogation, that an oppressive regime goes too far, that a democracy never reaches that extreme," Mr. Durbin says. "But to say that I am in any way diminishing the horrors, other horrors brought on by these regimes is just plain wrong."
That was not enough for Republican leaders, who joined Senator Warner in demanding an apology. Senate Majority leader Bill Frist issued a statement saying 'Shameful does not begin to describe this heinous slander against our country'.
The Anti-Defamation League also called for an apology.
On Tuesday, Mr. Durbin was forthcoming, his voice filled with emotion.
"I am sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time," Mr. Durbin says. "Nothing, nothing, should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy. I am also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military."
Senator John McCain praised Mr. Durbin for doing what he called the courageous thing, and he joined Democrats in expressing hope the issue could be laid to rest.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin to retire after more than 4 decades in CongressAnnouncement expected to set off flurry of political moves among Illinois Democrats
But as a creature of habit and bygone days, Senator Durbin just couldn't help himself. From The Hill, September 16, 2025:
Durbin says Democrats ‘absolutely’ have gone too far in rhetoric
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says his fellow Democrats have gone too far in demonizing their political opponents and called on both sides to come together in the wake of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“Absolutely,” Durbin said on “CNN News Central,” when asked whether he thinks Democrats — and not just Republicans — have “gone too far” in some of their rhetoric and in “demonizing the other side.”
“I mean, this notion that we’re going to characterize MAGA as Nazis, for example,” Durbin continued, offering an illustration of rhetoric from his own party. “On the other side, that the Republicans would characterize the Democrats as a party of murder or evil.”
“The outrage coming from both sides is unacceptable in both instances,” he added. “So, yes, both sides can learn a lesson here. And the loss of Mr. Kirk is a good reason to do it.”
Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said it’s important to come together to condemn political violence. He said public officials from both parties casting blame on their political opponents are “flat-out wrong.”
So much for the tale of our first senator.
Now on to our second senator, not from 20 years ago but just this week. And of course you know where this is going.
And this wasn't just a one-off (or a [couldn't resist] one-Ossoff...). Senator Ossoff has driven home this same point over and over and over again.
But unlike the situation with Senator Durbin 20 years ago, this time, from the Republican White House, there was only...silence. Trump did not rise to the defense of a candidate he endorsed just months ago, because that candidate has loser-stink all over him.
From Republicans in the Senate? Silence.
From Collins' colleagues in the House. Deafening silence.
From Fox News? The Wall Street Journal? The National Review? Nothing. Crickets. Tumbleweed.
In fact, the only criticism of any kind I could find was David Fucking Brooks' peevish reproof, which he delivered on PBS and for which Brooks was immediately spit-roasted by me and legions of others on the internet.
"Jon Ossoff, my advice to him is, if you start calling your political opponents Nazis, maybe it's time to shut up. That's just not what we do here in this country." -- David Brooks, this evening. Remember, Brooks still gets very handsomely rewarded by the fossilized media for saying shit like this
— driftglass (@driftglass.bsky.social) October 9, 2026 at 10:59 PM
Twenty-one years ago, Dick Durbin compared American interrogation techniques to those of totalitarian regimes, and the bipartisan outrage machine ran him down until he apologized. Today, Jon Ossoff makes a Nazi comparison on national television, and the same machine can't even be bothered to start the engine.
Did the rules change? Or were the rules never the point?
Instead, perhaps the point is who gets punished, who gets protected, and which fossilized pundits keep collecting six-figure paychecks to explain that this just isn't how we do things in America.
In conclusion...
