Thank you for sharing your comment--Bird of Paradise
I'm inclined to think that Sullivan and Hewitt deserve each other, but one point in Andy's favor is that he still seems capable of reacting to such external stimuli as, well, reality. Frankly, anyone who's still defending Bush and the national Republican Party is either suffering from a serious cognitive disorder, or simply lacks intellectual integrity. So is Hewitt a liar or a fool? I'm trying to give a damn, but... can't.
So, sglover, one of Sullivan's pet peeves is Bush's love of torture. What aside from the musings of Sy Hersh and his anonymous sources gives evidence that torture was a matter of policy, set down from on-high in the Administration?
So, sglover, one of Sullivan's pet peeves is Bush's love of torture. What aside from the musings of Sy Hersh and his anonymous sources gives evidence that torture was a matter of policy, set down from on-high in the Administration?
The long, well-documented trail of policies and personnel from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib to the mysterious 'black' prisons in Eastern Europe. The endless dissembling and parsing by sycophants like Yoo and Gonzales. The secrecy and recalcitrance at every meager attempt to investigate what's really happening in our secret prisons.
But from the tone of your question, I'm pretty sure that warehouses of documents wouldn't change your mind a jot. I'm equally sure that you don't think investigations are warranted, and would doggedly smear any public figure who pursued them. And I think it's a safe bet that you'd do it in the name of "freedom" and "limited government".
Guys like you are authoritarians, and fundamental enemies of the Enlightenment ideals that have made America a new kind of nation.
Sorry to break it to you, sglover, but the United States was not founded on "enlightenment ideals." You are confusing the American revolusion, Declaration of Independence and subsequent Constitution with those of France.
The French revolution was founded on enlightment ideals and quickly degenerated into "le deluge." Things went from bad to worse so quickly that just 25 years later the full power of France was placed in the hands of a one-person despot named Napoleon.
The American experiment, while drawing upon enlightenment thought, resisted such ideals as a foundation for the social and governmental principals of our independence and constitution.
A study of the Federalist Papers and the positions articulated by Madison and others makes this rejection of the "ideals" adopted by France clear.
In America the disinclination to believe in the inherent and basic goodness and evolving "enlightenment" of humanity was rejected in place of a fundamental sense of human moral weakness requiring the checks and balances built into our constitution.
To impose "enlightenment ideals" onto our US Constitutional principals of freedom and government with the consent of the governed would diminish rather than enhance our experience of liberty.
If you wish to attack with anger, at least get your fundamental understandings of American history and foundational first principals correct.
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