Delicious Irony
I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed! ~William Shakespeare
A fortnight or so ago, GOP-aligned pundits and activists let loose a protracted communal howl of outrage prompted by disclosure of a Department of Homeland Security assessment identifying "rightwing extremism" as a potential breeding ground for domestic terrorism. Much of the indignation was purely theatrical, of course with folks like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson preening as supposed victims of official persecution.
Immediately after laying claim to the status of innocently accused terrorist suspects, the same retinue of Republican hacks -- without breaking stride, mind you -- redirected their energy into the defense of torture as a means of interrogating terrorist suspects.
The time-frame in which this turnaround took place shouldn't have over-taxed the attention span of the typical talk radio addict, and the implicit logic of these positions should have been obvious even to people habituated to reflexive sloganeering, rather than ratiocination.
Yet there it is: In defending the atrocities committed by the Bush administration, the Republican-centered conservative movement effectively endorsed the proposition that it is entirely proper for the government to torture terrorist suspects -- including, presumably, "rightwing extremists" deemed a domestic terror threat by the incumbent government.
Read the rest...
A fortnight or so ago, GOP-aligned pundits and activists let loose a protracted communal howl of outrage prompted by disclosure of a Department of Homeland Security assessment identifying "rightwing extremism" as a potential breeding ground for domestic terrorism. Much of the indignation was purely theatrical, of course with folks like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson preening as supposed victims of official persecution.
Immediately after laying claim to the status of innocently accused terrorist suspects, the same retinue of Republican hacks -- without breaking stride, mind you -- redirected their energy into the defense of torture as a means of interrogating terrorist suspects.
The time-frame in which this turnaround took place shouldn't have over-taxed the attention span of the typical talk radio addict, and the implicit logic of these positions should have been obvious even to people habituated to reflexive sloganeering, rather than ratiocination.
Yet there it is: In defending the atrocities committed by the Bush administration, the Republican-centered conservative movement effectively endorsed the proposition that it is entirely proper for the government to torture terrorist suspects -- including, presumably, "rightwing extremists" deemed a domestic terror threat by the incumbent government.
Read the rest...