“Whenever the courts push back against the administration’s unsupportable constitutional ideas…the Bush response is to repeat the same chorus louder: Every detainee is the worst of the worst; every action taken is legal, necessary, and secret. No mistakes, no apologies. No nuance, no regrets. This legal and intellectual intractability can create the illusion that we are standing on the same constitutional ground we stood upon in 2001, even as that ground is sliding away under our feet.” Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick surveys the top ten most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006.
Month: January 2007
The Dangling Conversation.
So, as I’m guessing you probably heard, Saddam was hung [obit]. Well, as a long-delayed deliverance of justice visited upon a bloodthirsty and sadistic tyrant, the execution may have been a success. But as a piece of political theater and a symbolic and unifying act of statebuilding, it definitely left something to be desired. Unfortunately, even notwithstanding the poorly-timed Shiite revelry, the hanging came across on tape less as a dispassionate exercise by the new Iraqi State than a heated episode of sectarian vigilantism, one that may grant Saddam more power in martyrdom than he’s had in life since his capture. Something to consider if and when Osama Bin Laden is ever brought to justice…
07.
Happy new year, everyone. My family and I rang in 2007 in the baggage claim at Norfolk airport, after an exhausting 42-hour New Year’s Eve that took us from Turangi to Auckland to LA to Dallas to the EST. So, yes, after much travel, I’m now back in the USA, and will be returning to Gotham in a matter of days (after springing Berk from the local Big House on the 2nd.) Until then, I hope to be catching up on at least some of the recent movies I’ve missed while overseas…which reminds me, due to the recent travels, I’ve given myself an extra week to post the usual end-of-year film list…so, sorry for the hold-up, y’all, and happy 2007 once again.