TO CLARIFY

My reference to threats to liberty in acquiescing to government abuse and torture of prisoners had nothing to do with freedom of the press, pace Jonah. It had everything to with a creeping expansion of government power in wartime – and public indifference, aided and abetted by some pundits. When a government commits abuses and the rest of us yawn, or decide it’s irrelevant or justified for other reasons, liberty is indeed lessened. I’ll leave John Podhoretz’s rhetoric for others to judge. But I’d wager I know much less about Joan Crawford, Mae West or Bette Davis than John does.