Kevin Drum, with the age old question:
The trajectory of this debate has been depressing beyond words. As recently as a year or two ago, conservatives seemed at least occasionally defensive about the whole thing, mostly limiting their defense of torture to ticking time bomb scenarios and the like. It wasn’t pretty, but it was at least a tacit admission that torture was shameful enough to be considered only in extremis.
But no more. The party that used to take Darkness at Noon as practically an ur-text about the evils of communism is now home to a snarling pack of presidential candidates who fall all over themselves to defend torture and abusive interrogation as a routine practice. How did we get here?
The short answer is that a “snarling pack” of left wing bloggers, an excitable “conservative” blogger, and a bunch of power-hungry Democratic politicians used the “torture” issue as a bludgeon, rather than as an opportunity to take a discussion to the American people. Kevin thinks that’s because Democrats don’t have a talk radio infrastructure (and whose fault is that?) — I think it’s because too many Democratic staffers, advisers, and consultants read Daily Kos and it’s ilk, and think their approach to issues is just marvelous.
I know that brings up the classic tu quoque argument of “well, the wingers were hateful to Clinton, and it worked…so why shouldn’t we be even more hateful to Bush? More is better, isn’t it? This is still America, right?” And I have to admit that that argument has merit. Still, it puts the lie to “thoughtful” musings about how “we” got to a place Kevin doesn’t like.
Filed under: Politics
Except for the fact that the internet had much less influence during Clinton’s term of office.
I think that revelations about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo had something to do with the rise into prominence of the issue, as the nation learned of some things that we were doing to those in our custody.
Chris — Not sure what you’re getting at there…I assume it’s that wrongheaded wingers didn’t have as much reach as today’s lefty netnuts do. If so, I agree, but with the caveat that the “internet” of the time was really talk radio, and Rush Limbaugh reigned supreme then as he does now.
twc: Sheesh, I see a long argument with you coming up here :-)
Abu Ghraib: Yes. Graner, England, and Co. did incalculable damage to our national reputation. No, I don’t think Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney personally approved butt-pyramids or any other such nonsense.
BGCOL Janice Karpinski, Commander at Abu Ghraib and newly minted liberal hero tends to confirm that for me — she didn’t try to peddle any such nonsense until her own ass was in the wringer.Guantanamo Bay: Perhaps. No butt-pyramids or electrical wiring there, in any case, and I’m more of a mind to blame backwards assed Islamists who are afraid of menstrual blood for anything that’s happened there than I am our interrogators. Or perhaps Newsweek, which ran to press with blatant lies about Korans being flushed down toilets, when it was the Islamists themselves desecrating their holy book.
Overall, I think the Media, Lefty blogs, Andrew Sullivan, and Greg Djerijian (or however you spell that) have done more to cast a pall over this country’s reputation by pushing the “torture” issue far beyond the merits of rational discussion than any interrogator has.