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There is a way that success can make a once progressive vehicle become timid. The writers follow the editors, become cautious, moralistic, way too conventional. Joan Walsh, Thomas Schaller, Camile Paglia, Joe Conason, these are the core of a Clintonesque, triangulating crew of journalists who seem to be becoming more worried about their credibility with the most conventional news people in DC than they do with speaking the truth. Thankfully, there is still Glenn Greenwald hanging in there.
Schaller sounds like the kind of guy who would have tisked tisked Vietnam era protesters for "going too far" in suggesting that LBJ had blood on his hands, chanting in front of the White House, even though he did have blood on his hands and didn't deserve to sleep.
What Bush has done to Iraq is far worse than what Johnson did, if not in numbers, in sheer illegality and long term harm to the world. The guy threw shoes, an act that should have been symbolically devastating to Bush were the man not a moron. The act was hardly "immature," especially since the guy undoubtedly knew that he would immediately be beaten and then whisked off to prison, where, I would bet, he is being tortured right now. Did he say anything about Bush that isn't true? Blood is on these people's hands. This isn't just some game he was playing to punk the American president -- he wanted to tell Bush to his face what a murderous and evil thing he has done. And Bush's response? Oblivious in front of the camera, and undoubtedly petulant in private. A fitting conclusion to his foreign travels.
If there is a modicum of justice, Bush and his agents will end their lives in prison. But I'm not holding my breath when there are people like Schaller willing to pity the powerful over their victims.
