Dynamite?

John J. Miller thinks that’s what the Foley affair might be for the GOP. Kevin Drum agrees. I think it depends on whether this story gets more complicated, whether there’s more information to come about Foley’s Internet correspondence, and whether Republican higher-ups really did know as much before as they do now. We don’t know much that is solid about that yet.

Email of the Day

A reader writes:

I read your blog a couple of times a day, and it is so refreshing to see someone, a war supporter, call it like it is NOW. You’re absolutely right, we need mixed government to bring a sane balance back to policy emanating from Washington.  As a 46 y/o and retired Army officer, I’ve never been so fearful for the future of our country.  Power corrupts, and we’ve all seen that known lesson first hand – in the U.S. where we were accustomed to viewing, and judging from afar. Now it’s our way of life – and unless somebody applies the brakes soon, we’re lost. I know you’ve been targeted by the right-wing machine, but the Clintons survived it, and so will you if you stick to principle.

Torturing Innocents

Hugh Hewitt’s side-kick, Dean Barnett is all for it. Glenn Reynolds links approvingly, while of course being offended that anyone would think he supports torture. Money quote from a self-addressed series of questions on Hewitt’s blog-page:

Dean Barnett: … [T]he undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool.

8) That’s a very clinical way of putting it. Why don’t you go have yourself water-boarded and see how you like it.

DB: No thanks. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it. I’m sure it’s extremely unpleasant. Does it rise to the level of ‘torture’? That’s for each individual to decide.

9) What do you think?

DB: I don’t care. If some body of linguists or semanticists convened a weekend retreat in Cambridge, impartially studied the issue and labeled it torture, I still wouldn’t care. The welfare of terrorists is not my concern. Even if all the Jack Bauer-type crap you see on ’24’ was the best way to go, I’d still be okay with it.

10) But it’s not just terrorists. It’s suspected terrorists. Surely that bothers you.

DB: It does. It’s inevitable that innocent people will be subjected to this kind of treatment. But this is war, and in war we make moral compromises.

I don’t know if Hewitt, a professed Christian, agrees. It seems odd that very complicated issues like when life might actually begin and end are subject to absolute certainty. But whether something is "torture" or not is up "for each individual to decide." When the right needs to defend the indefensible, a little moral relativism never hurts. But there’s a more devastating moment in the post: on one of the fudnamentals of a civilized society, Barnett bravely asserts:

"I don’t care."

Yes, the Bush flunkies just got a little more honest and a lot more sickening.

The GOP Party Line

Here’s Mark Levin with the Foley talking points from the RNC. Here’s another Republican argument that this is all about Democrat-MSM dirty tricks. Meanwhile, there’s some O-Reilly-esque harrumphing from partisan Democrats. Both sides’ eagerness to exploit this for political point-scoring make me a litte queasy. But I guess it’s October in an election year.

The Terror of Water

Wavesun

Here’s a great summary of what waterboarding does:

Terror is a simple business. All you have to do is drip water into a cloth held over a man’s face, and he will feel – he will know – that he is drowning. It is false knowledge, yes, but it has the force of truth. And to know that you are dying, being executed, is an astonishingly terrible thing. It changes a man, much as rape changes a woman.