Reply #65: Oh for Christ's sake, knock off the ridiculous excuses...

[Iowa]

Eight years ago the government sanctioned torture of prisoners (including children) would have been unthinkable. The Bush administration dragged this country into the dark ages and plunged the national mood into a depression via all sorts of disgusting behavior - with torture at the pinnacle. We now have an opportunity to cleanse ourselves of that vile stain, but Obama is standing in the way.

Until Obama we could delude ourselves into believing that U.S. government sanctioned torture was driven by the animals in the Bush administration - an administration that was probably unelected, no less. It was a national nightmare with an eight year shelf life that never would have occurred were it not for a dumbed-down electorate and proprietary corporate vote counting. At least that's what we told ourselves. That consolation has now been stripped away. By trying to be an appeaser, Obama is making that nightmare a permanent part of the national psyche. Gerald Ford redux (except at least with Ford we had the consolation that Nixon was forced out in disgrace, just one step ahead of the law).

In order to sleep at night there are some bugs that you smash with a great big rock until it's really, truly, completely dead, and you're damned sure that it's not coming back to bite you again. Government sanctioned torture is like that. Unfortunately, we now have a president who takes a "moderate" position on torture.