Writer Jane Meyer, in a New Yorker book review, has eviscerated Marc A. Thiessen's apology for the Bush administration's torture policies, Courting Disaster. Thiessen has recently been named a columnist for the Washington Post; he's a guy with a big megaphone who is devoted to celebrating the "successes" of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld war on human decency. Unfortunately, this Bush speech writer is not alone in obscuring responsibility for past crimes.
Meyer knows what she's talking about; she broke much of the awful tale in The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.By holding no one accountable for past abuse, and by convening no commission on what did and didn’t protect the country, President Obama has left the telling of this dark chapter in American history to those who most want to whitewash it.
Check out Meyer's thoroughly informed essay.
Used to be that mention of the Washington Post would get me to wonder what they were up to that would interest me. No longer--they have been lurching toward the dark side for some time.
ReplyDeleteWapo owners must believe conservatism will keep them going...wrong. Every day I hold two papers--NY Times & Oregonian-- in my hands (no, not at the same time) and feel them get thinner.
Neighborhood papers, which have never pretended to be anything other than advertising venues, will soon be all we have.