Is The Dam Breaking?

The latest evidence of brazen destruction of critical evidence of illegal activity by the CIA seems to have provoked even the most die-hard of Bush supporters into something like reality. To Malkin, I am part of the "unhinged left". But even she has to concede:

It is bad.

Rick Moran expresses what many on the center-right privately feel:

There may be good reason to destroy DVD’s of interrogations. But not when they have probative value in a potential court case nor when they are destroyed to cover up wrong doing by employees of the government.

Moran wants to junk the Geneva Conventions – but even he sees that, whatever your view of them, they are still the law of the land, and destruction of evidence that they have been broken is a function of a government that regards itself as above the law. And Moran also understands that the law is crystal-clear:

And yes, waterboarding is torture. Putting a prisoner in stress positions is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture.

James Joyner notes:

The CIA’s entirely plausible explanation is that they destroyed the tapes for security reasons rather than to subvert the legal process. That doesn’t, of course, mean that they didn’t subvert the legal process in so doing; indeed, it’s rather obvious that they did.

Insta-silence, of course. Glibertarians don’t care about the government torturing people and destroying the evidence. And despite page one treatment across the planet, crickets chirp at the Corner.

Clinton In Iowa

This can’t be encouraging:

Once, Garry Thomas counted himself a Hillary Clinton supporter — even signing up to be one of her 25 co-chairs in Iowa alongside with former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack. But Thomas now says he felt obliged to switch sides in recent weeks. "I think the Clinton campaign went negative," Thomas said in a telephone interview on Thursday. He attributed his defection to the new tone Clinton took last weekend, describing it as divisive. Obama officials said Thomas committed to them this week.

The One And Original, Ctd.

A reader writes:

Thanks for posting the Kennedy speech. I had never seen or heard it before, but have now played it several times. Being just over 30 years old, the only political speeches I recall are Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and vaguely Reagan. None of them, not one, captured my attention like the Kennedy speech.

In my studies, I understand the president to be the face of the nation. He is not a law-maker, or a general, but someone who embodies what our country is all about. A figure who instills spirit in the citizens and encourages foreign leaders to follow our example.

When did this change? From my perspective, this changed on November 22, 1963.

Americanism As A Religion

It is, of course, one way to think of Mormonism, but this observation struck me as worthwhile:

[Romney] skilfully presents religion as a much more up-to-date form of nationalism. Mormonism becomes the quintessence of American religious liberty, and this liberty becomes the source of American power. The pilgrim fathers, he allows, fled from England for liberty for themselves, but they would not grant it to other people. Just as early religious dissidents had to flee Massachusetts for Rhode Island, two centuries later Brigham Young had to head out for Utah after Joseph Smith was lynched.

Religious liberty thus becomes the defining feature of American culture in his speech.

And the non-religious are therefore somehow un-American or irrelevant to America.

Refreshing Fred

After a religion-soaked day yesterday, it was a relief to read this:

[Fred Thompson] said he gained his values from "sitting around the kitchen table" and said he did not plan to speak about his religious beliefs on the stump. "I know that I’m right with God and the people I love," he said, according to Bloomberg News Service. It’s "just the way I am –  not to talk about some of these things."

Please stay the way you are, Fred.