“You’re on the mark about the Durbin comments, although I might wish that he’d phrased it more clearly in order to avoid this entire mess. He was not making a direct analogy between our government and the Nazis, but it ‘sounded like he was’. In any case, although he’s right and you’re right, the Republicans will definitely gain ground riding this issue. The reason is that people don’t want to believe that their government (and, by extension, they themselves) are responsible for heinous torture and meaningless deaths. So they will find that they agree with those who dismiss it, minimize it, or justify it. In order to maintain their mental block, they’ll have to attack those who challenge it all the more fiercely. Many Americans are reading the conservative rebuttals of Durbin with a great deal of relief right now.” I’m reminded of Mayor Daley’s amazing quote: “I think it’s a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military act like that.” Some questions: Is Daley denying the incident Durbin described? And what does he mean by “like that”? We know for a fact that some U.S. interrogators have tortured some detainees to death. We know it because the military has conceded it. Is it now “a disgrace” to report that? Is it “a disgrace” to lament that? And how exactly is torturing innocent people to death via presidential memo utterly different than the behavior in many vile regimes?
EMAIL OF THE DAY II: “It occurs to me to note that much of the debate is not (as you know), between Americans and anti-Americans, as the Bush administration and its flacks disingenuously contend. Nor is it primarily between those who believe in American exceptionalism and those who dispute it. Rather, it is between those who espouse it in a narrow, brittle way (“We’re America, we’re special, so don’t ever question our motives or tactics!”) versus those of us who believe it with a deep, abiding faith (“We’re America, we’re special, so we CAN AND MUST win a difficult war even constrained by moral principles that lesser countries flout and ignore!”)”
The Dish 