...the assertion that Bush's evangelical fervor is insincerely held is no less irrational, hubristic and absurd than when the same claim is made by his followers against Democrats and liberals who claim to be guided by faith.

I agree with your main point, that liberals/rational people simply stating "Bush is evil" is much too black-and-white and unreasonable, especially in the face of the Bush Administration's own unceasing desire to label everything in the world as Good or Bad. But calling Bush's exhaustingly frequent claims of his own evangelical Christian morality misleading to the point of bald-faced fabrication is not the same thing as decrying him as an unchangingly Evil person: as you noted, the man's actions speak for themselves, and continually refute his claims to good Christian morality. Of course it's impossible to know for sure whether Bush believes everything in the Bible, or takes Christ's philosophy seriously, or is genuinely born again and moved by the Spirit... but judging by his actions in the world at large for the duration of his two terms in office, when he might, conceivably, have used his position as the most powerful man on the planet to progress the ideals of Christian brotherhood and peace, the answer is pretty clearly that it's all a sham. I can't claim to have any knowledge of what goes through his head when he's listening to a sermon, or reading the Bible, but I also definitely do not believe it's unreasonable to call a man's religious beliefs into question when all of his actions have stood in stark contrast to the precepts of that belief.

it's hard to believe the rest of the world (particularly south america) viewed the united states with anything less than disdain prior to the bush administration, given our widespread and well-known (if unconfessed) meddling in their affairs, generally to the worse. you know, assassinations of elected officials, arms for hostages, invasions, etc. I suppose this puts me in that small but "unrepresentative" group of people on the left who consider the bush admin.'s policies an amplification and continuation of the norm for u.s. imperialism in the world at large.

They maintained favorable views of the U.S. not because they were unaware of its failings, but rather, because the good that the U.S. did in the world outweighed its bad.

This assertion somehow rings false to me. No one can argue that the United States has not acted to the world's benefit in the past, as you noted (in WWII, especially), but do whether these actions actually outweigh our imperialist, warmongering, culture-destroying actions both in the past and present is a question that simply can't be answered yet. It's possible that this question will only be truly answered decades from now, when perhaps the American Empire will be a memento of history, rather than the main actor (for good and ill) on the world stage that it now is. Even your examples of the U.S. acting for good in the past are not really convincing to me--our attempts to end Communism certainly helped many people who were living under oppressive dictatorships in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, but to suggest that the U.S. combatted global communism in order to help these people is simply ridiculous. The United States has acted almost entirely for its own economic and strategic benefit for at least the past fifty years. Do you truly think we went into Korea, Vietnam, etc. in order to "liberate" the poor people living in brutal Communist dictatorships? Not to mention setting up our own dictatorships in Latin America and elsewhere so we could stay on our game with the Reds.

I haven't read her newest yet, but I just thought I'd mention her second book,

Still She Haunts Me

, is the worst piece of speculative "historical" fiction I've ever read. Way to do basically no research into the subject! I realize this is sliiiiiightly off-topic, but it kind of bugs me, as a rabid Carrollian, to see the same misinformation over and over.

seriously, what gives? I expect a lot better from salon in terms of solid questions, especially when the interviewee has made so many statements and done so many things that demand to be examined in great detail.

Glenn, I'm so glad you came back to post on this. (Enjoy the rest of your weekend off, though!) The other (mainstream newspaper, of course) coverage of the Padilla conviction I've read hasn't mentioned at all the reason behind the Bush admin's decision to bring the case to trial--namely, as you point out, to protect their ability to "lawfully" detain U.S. citizens on the flimsiest of charges.

How depressing that the juror interviewed by the New York Times says "the evidence was strong, and we all agreed on that"... What evidence was that? The top-secret information on the mysterious dirty bomb, that was never brought up in court? The "thousands of calls" between suspected terrorists, in which Padilla's voice was heard only seven times, without being accused of using terrorist code? The 1997 bin Laden interview that had basically nothing to do with Padilla's case, and which the jurors were instructed to disregard?

As a Christian and an American, I strongly feel that no matter what this man might have done, or whatever hatred he might have harbored towards the United States, neither he nor anyone else deserves to be treated in such a dehumanizing way as he has been. The fact that he has been imprisoned for over three years, tortured physically and mentally in the most brutal ways, and finally condemned to life in prison (only another form of state-sanctioned torture) on this flimsiest of evidence --and the fact that this entire chain of events is being championed and boasted of by our government--is not only morally reprehensible. I'll leave it to a better commentator than myself to say exactly where this leaves the American Republic, though... I'm sure we're all looking forward to Mr Greenwald's summing-up come Monday.