Comments on: Being There or Moby Dick?

By: pallap

pallap — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:09:01 +0000

I thought that the great white whale in this case was big guvmint. kill all those programs by spending into the ground.

By: Quidpro

Quidpro — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:16:23 +0000

Miriam, you should read “What Congress knew about ‘Torture’” at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120464870255997.html before you insist on a truth commission. Both Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees received thorough briefings on the anti-terror interrogation techniques which now raise leftist ire. If the Democratic leadership thought that these techniques were beyond the pale, it could have blocked funding. It could have held hearings and passed legislation to prohibit “waterboarding” and other techniques which it now claims to be “torture”.

But if the Democrats insist on holding a “truth commission”, then they should question many in their own leadership who acquiesced in techniques they now claim to find reprehensible. I believe that Obama is too smart to become caught in this trap.

By: Miriam

Miriam — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:13:09 +0000

Torture is not a ‘difference in policy.’

By: Quidpro

Quidpro — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:17:27 +0000

Neither literary analogy applies. Bush, unlike Ahab, actually caught the prey he sought. He didn’t lose the Pequod and all of its crew either. Nor are the “bushisms” lampooned by Molly Ivins and her ilk celebrated as profound “zenlike koans”.

Obama is right to ignore Krugman’s call for an inquisition. Now that the Democrats must actually govern, I doubt that they will want to continue down the path of criminalizing differnces in policy.