The Dish

"The light of our ideals shone dimly in those early dark days [of the Revolutionary War], years from an end to the conflict, years before our improbable triumph and the birth of our democracy. General Washington wasn’t that far from where the Continental Congress had met and signed the Declaration of Independence. But it’s easy to imagine how far that must have seemed. General Washington announced a decision unique in human history, sending the following order for handling prisoners:

"Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren."

Therefore, George Washington, our commander-in-chief before he was our President, laid down the indelible marker of our nation’s values even as we were struggling as a nation ‚Äì and his courageous act reminds us that America was born out of faith in certain basic principles. In fact, it is these principles that made and still make our country exceptional and allow us to serve as an example. We are not bound together as a nation by bloodlines. We are not bound by ancient history; our nation is a new nation. Above all, we are bound by our values.

George Washington understood that how you treat enemy combatants could reverberate around the world.  We must convict and punish the guilty in a way that reinforces their guilt before the world and does not undermine our constitutional values.

Now these values ‚Äì George Washington‚Äôs values, the values of our founding ‚Äì are at stake. We are debating far-reaching legislation that would fundamentally alter our nation’s conduct in the world and the rights of Americans here at home. And we are debating it too hastily in a debate too steeped in electoral politics.

The Senate, under the authority of the Republican Majority and with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush-Cheney Administration, is doing a great disservice to our history, our principles, our citizens, and our soldiers. The deliberative process is being broken under the pressure of partisanship and the policy that results is a travesty," – Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton, in a great speech.

Readers know my long-standing suspicion of all things Hillary. But her speech today is a speech that rings with the sound of an opposition finally – finally – finding its voice. It is a speech a future president might make. Maybe it just was.

(I got a copy from a source. I cannot find a link yet online. If you find one, please let me know. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.)

"As a political writer, [Frank] Rich is a marginal crackpot ‚Äî just this side of a flat-out shelled nut. And yes ‚Äî he’s done gigantic harm to liberal interests over the course of the past dozen years. And yet, sensitive liberals cry and complain when someone dares to notice the problem. Why would a Democrat dislike Rich’s work? Frankly, because he has read it," Bob Somerby, criticizing Frank Rich from the left. I wouldn’t be so harsh, but it’s ballsy, that’s for sure.

Yes, in some respects, it is. Money quote:

"What this bill would do is take our civilization back 900 years," to before the adoption of the writ of habeas corpus in medieval England, Senator Specter said.

Mr. Leahy said the bill as written would allow the executive branch to hold any lawful immigrant in the United States indefinitely without charge. "We are about to put the darkest blot on the conscience of the nation," he said, charging that the push for quick passage was purely for political gain. "There is no new national security crisis," he said. "There’s only a Republican political crisis."

This is what conservatism has now become. Because of McCain’s capitulation and the Democrats’ cowardice, this bill will now pass. The use of torture as a campaign weapon will be brutal, and deployed first and foremost by this president:

Underscoring the political stakes involved, White House spokesman Tony Snow said today that President Bush will emphasize Democratic opposition to the bill in campaign appearances.

"He’ll be citing some of the comments that members of the Democratic leadership have made in recent days about what they think is necessary for winning the war on terror," Mr. Snow told reporters en route to a fundraiser in Alabama, according to a transcript provided by the White House.

The only response is for the public to send a message this fall. In congressional races, your decision should always take into account the quality of the individual candidates. But this November, the stakes are higher. If this Republican party maintains control of all branches of government, the danger to individual liberty is extremely grave. Put aside all your concerns about the Democratic leadership. What matters now is that this juggernaut against individual liberty and constitutional rights be stopped. The court has failed to stop it; the legislature has failed to stop it; only the voters can stop it now. If they don’t, they will at least have been warned.

"Congress isn’t driving the bus over a cliff – that’s what the administration asked for, but thanks to the bold rebellion of Senators McCain, Warner and Graham, [Congress] refused. Instead they simply removed the guard rail, fired the traffic cops, gave the keys to a drunk driver, and closed their eyes," – Obsidian Wings’ blog, on the torture and detention-without-charge bill.

Marty Lederman dissects the rightly blistering NYT editorial today here. They used my formulation:

"Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration. They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts."

Neither party comes out of this looking anything but cowardly, unprincipled and morally bankrupt.

"There were a helluva lot of us who got dragged along for the [Iraq War] ride, played like chumps we now know with hindsight. Realist types like me mostly did based on fears of Saddam’s supposed chemical and biological WMD capability (relying on Tenet’s ‘slam dunk’ for the casus belli), thinking 9/11 might have inspired Saddam, and per ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ that he might decide to cozy up with transnational terror groups like al-Qaeda to deliver a severe second-round blow to the U.S.

Like many New Yorkers and others who were impacted or witnessed the attacks, I suspect, I suppose I also felt much anger, fused with an ill-advised sense of absolutist, moral righteousness that was its own form of self-indulgent vanity too, one that helped spur on copious helpings of jingo-fever in the air – with too few of us asking the hard questions about the hows and why and whos of how the post-war nation-building effort would be pursued (I speak here of Iraq, not the fully warranted conflict in Afghanistan). Such public confessionals aren’t particularly pleasant, of course, but they have the merit of being honest reflections of what I now believe, for whatever they’re worth," – Greg Djerejian.

I see a lot of my own vanity in those months as well. And I feel the same way about it as Greg does.

For the second time, the Vatican has thrown its weight behind the argument that extreme religious fundamentalism can pose a threat to civilization. This strikes me as a big deal:

"It falls to all interested parties – to civil society as well as to states – to promote religious freedom and a sane, social tolerance that will disarm extremists even before they can begin to corrupt others with their hatred of life and liberty … Human pride hampers the acknowledgment of one’s neighbor and the recognition of his or her needs and even more makes people distrusting. Today, that same negative fundamental attitude has given rise to a new barbarism that threatens world peace."

That’s the Vatican’s spokesman at the U.N. I have said many negative things about this Pope. But I’ve have also tried to recognize the positive things he has done, when appropriate. His first Encyclical on agape was sublime; he has at least addressed the terrible crimes of Father Maciel; his intellectual engagement with the irrational in Islam was courageous, and his defense of God-as-reason important in a world where God-as-unreason is increasingly dominant. This latest indirect address shows that this Pope sees the terrible danger religious extremism poses to our modern world. He is still sadly mistaken in my view in several areas, and far too restrictive of Catholic dialogue and reform. The hideously anti-gay Instruction – and its implicit bigotry – remains a deep stain. Religious extremism, moreoever, is not restricted to Islam, although that is where our current crisis is coming from. Its spread within Christianity is deeply worrying. But credit where due: this Pope is getting some big things right; and using his powerful voice to speak the truth. I’m not afraid to change my mind. On this Pope, it’s changing.

(Photo: Andrew Medicini/AP).

The club-drug, ketamine, is essentially an animal anaesthetic. Because it gives people pleasure and in large doses can be dangerous, it’s illegal for recreational use. But, as we know, the fact that a substance provides pleasure has no correlation with its other potential therapeutic properties. Pharmaceuticals are all pharmaceuticals. So it’s encouraging but not surprising that ketamine turns out to have a new and surprising power against clinical depression. More research, please.

Yerevan, Armenia, 8.30 am.

Hard to improve on Stephen Colbert.

"The new anxiety is the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit. This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible. This terrorism isn’t our fault. We didn’t cause it. It’s not the consequence of foreign policy. It’s an attack on our way of life. It’s global. It has an ideology. It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of. It has been decades growing. Its victims are in Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Turkey. Over 30 nations in the world. It preys on every conflict. It exploits every grievance. And its victims are mainly Muslim.

This is not our war against Islam. This is a war fought by extremists who pervert the true faith of Islam.  And all of us, Western and Arab, Christian or Muslim, who put the value of tolerance, respect and peaceful co-existence above those of sectarian hatred, should join together to defeat them," – British prime minister, Tony Blair, yesterday. I agree with every word.