I’m a longstanding admirer of James Fallows, whose varied and always substantive and incisive blogging at the Atlantic is worthy of your attention, but even he today succumbs to the meme of the moment (and the last and the next) on torture. Congratulations to Sen. John McCain for his brave op-ed in the Washington Post […]
Torture and American Exceptionalism
Since la crème de la GOP decided to use the death of Osama bin Laden as the basis for a renewed defense of torture (and other virtues that form the basis of their overweening national pride), I’m offering this week from the none-too-dusty sad red archives the best this blog has had to offer on […]
This Whole Debate Is Torture
Given that the dark matter is once again exercising its invisible pull on the national consciousness – come, let me show you something my little darlings, its right here, just around the corner, you’ll like it, a little further now – and attempting to use Osama bin Laden’s long goodbye as renewed justification for torture, […]
Obama & Bin Laden: “A Politically Courageous Decision of the First Order”
Steve Schmidt, 2008 political adviser to the John McCain campaign appeared yesterday on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and demonstrated what it means to be a “political opponent” and not a “political enemy.” While many other conservatives, in their grasping meanness, have sought to diminish President O’bama’s leadership in his action against Osama bin […]
A “Rose in the Desert” Smells Like Shit
I mean not to diminish but heighten in significance the state repression and murder currently being executed across Syria by reminding us all of what I had intended to write of at the time, the creepiest, most morally repugnant journalism of the year – Joan Juliet Buck‘s “A Rose in the Desert,” for Vogue, with […]