I missed this comment from a reader:
At this late stage in the game, they're still desperate to convince anyone who'll listen that the Bush team will protect America "by any means necessary". It doesn't matter if those means are contradictory, ineffective, un-American or downright inhuman. They're banking on the American people's continuing detachment from and ignorance of reality concerning interrogation and the consequent and pervasive fear this reinforces.
For myself, I used to think that the posture of the Administration was a political result of not wanting to be flanked from the Right on any security matter in the run-up to re-election.
Now, I'm not so sure it wasn't simply the result of folks inside the Administration who really did see in the post-9/11 consensus an opportunity to strengthen the Executive and the DoD within it, and for whom taking off the kid gloves implies ... no holds barred.
sullylink
