thoughts on a truth commission
April 30, 2009 7 Comments
Taking Leave of Our Senses
“But the argument isn’t going away. It will be with us as long as the threat of terrorism endures. And where the Bush administration’s interrogation programs are concerned, we’ve heard too much to just “look forward,” as the president would have us do. We need to hear more: What was done and who approved it, and what intelligence we really gleaned from it. Not so that we can prosecute – unless the Democratic Party has taken leave of its senses – but so that we can learn, and pass judgment, and struggle toward consensus.” ~ Ross Douthat in his debut column for The New York Times
I enjoyed Ross’s column. It was good – much better than anything Kristol ever churned out for the Times, and better than most of what I’ve read from Brooks. I wonder about this paragraph however. The column was moving right along for me until I read, in regards to the torture debate: “Not so that we can prosecute – unless the Democratic Party has taken leave of its sense….”
So Ross wants prosecution off the table so that we can instead “learn, and pass judgment, and struggle toward consensus” … ? Isn’t that exactly what he warns against in the preceding sentence, when he claims that we’ve “heard too much to just ‘look forward’”? What is the difference between struggling toward consensus and just looking forward? In the end, what’s the difference between Douthat’s analysis and Peggy Noonan’s call to just keep walking, aside from rather more readable prose of the former? [Read more →]
April 28, 2009 67 Comments
