I think that if the Republicans initiated a campaign to erect a monument to Richard Nixon on the Mall, and to inscribe on the marble above the entrance, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal," the Villagers would stand and salute.

I am also starting to think that the best way to think of the federal government and the MSM is as a product distribution chain: the government produces, the MSM distributes. The MSM reacts to the Internet like any other seller threatened by disintermediation: it snuggles up to its supplier and alienates its customers. Complaining about how their supplier violates their own Constitutional rights is not part of the program.

Somebody recently adapted the Niemoller poem to the context of US torture. The MSM seems unable to extrapolate, so here you go, kids:

First they came for Sami al-Haj, but I said nothing because I did not work for al Jazeera.

Then they came for Bilal Hussein, but I said nothing because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for Ibrahim Jassam...

You get the idea....

I would have bet cash money you would have gone this way today, Glenn:

I really don't see how we can allow Demjanjuk's prosecution to go forward.

Would it not be unfair to "prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect (their country) for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by (their government)"?

Surely we can agree that Demjanjuk was "pressured by (his) fear, by (his) sense of duty to a fearful nation, led by a (government) awash in fear—all of this swimming in (his) head and clouding that moral compass—acted in good faith, from (his) perceptions." Under such circumstances, “no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the (Ministry) of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished.”

WWII was, of course, a "dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

Indeed, "the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now ... to excoriate those who kept (their country) safe ..."

Links at sig.

Consensual intercourse between adults: sex, legal

Non-consensual intercourse: rape, illegal

Consensual punch in the face: boxing, legal

Non-consensual punch in the face: battery, illegal

Consensual waterboarding: SERE, legal

Non-consensual waterboarding: torture, illegal

You see, now, I hope, that the ACT is not what determines the outcome. Informed and legally competent CONSENT, or lack thereof, determines the outcome.

Maybe this was inevitable. When we fought WWII, and during the Cold War, we defined ourselves by what we were not.

Now we are the last superpower standing, and, for many, there is little residual value in being good. We are powerful, and that is enough. In fact, it is beginning to look like a substantial percentage of people have decided that it is the only thing.

I have long feared ideas like new Constitutional conventions, because I assumed we could never get modern America to approve most of the Bill of Rights. Now I see the bipartisan embrace of torture and authoritarian ideas like these ("let Daddy Obama decide what the law is"), and I wonder if you could even get most Americans to approve the basic separation of powers.

Here's something I wrote in a comment to one of your columns almost two years ago:

The Constitution stood, bound and blindfolded, before Bush's firing squad. The call to the Democratic cavalry went out. And, lo, the cavalry rode in, at the very last minute... and shot the prisoner themselves.

The names have changed....

Glenn, your piece seems to adopt a magnanimous, "vive le difference" attitude about the casual attitude of the MSM re: attribution to bloggers vs. our own general willingness to link and credit.

But, as with so much you blog about, the issue (for me) is the damned hypocrisy. We generally live by our rules, which they see as too lax. They claim much higher standards, yet blatantly violate them with impunity. (The MoDo incident is most notable not for the taking, but for the fact that she copped to and corrected her plagiarism. As for the absurdity of her explanation, well, res ipsa loquitur.)

It is a little like a record company whose products consist largely of sampling getting exercised about kids illegally copying their records....

Ultimately, what I find most harmful about his embrace of things like preventive detention, concealment of torture evidence, opposition to investigations and the like is that these policies are now no longer just right-wing dogma but also the ideas that many defenders of his -- Democrats, liberals, progressives -- will defend as well. The more Obama embraces core Bush terrorism policies and assumptions... the more those premises are transformed from right-wing dogma into the prongs of bipartisan consensus, no longer just advocated by Bush followers but by many Obama defenders as well.

Absolutely right, and perhaps the bitterest truth of all. For it means that in electing Obama, we won the battle but lost the war. The man who promised to sweep the Aegean stables is now content with slowing the rate at which the shit accumulates.

There will be no judgment at Nuremberg; the rule of law will remain a lefty obsession honored mostly in its breach. There will be no denouement; we will "look forward" to our future as an authoritarian nation, complacent and complicit.