brainrow

Marianne Faithfull has cancer. Rats.

Her publicist says her prognosis is good. Best wishes to her for a complete recovery.

I got some mail from Mary Jo Kilroy’s congressional campaign. She’s challenging Deb Pryce, my congressional representative and the chair of the House Republican Conference.

Right away I noticed a difference between the two campaigns’ way of getting their message to me.

Deb Pryce:

Mary Jo Kilroy:

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert says “the very character of the United States is changing, and not for the better.”

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Kennedy argued that the U.S. would never launch a Pearl Harbor-style first strike. But now, “not only does the U.S. launch an unprovoked invasion and occupation of a small nation — Iraq — but it does so in response to an attack inside the U.S. that the small nation had nothing to do with.”

Torture, once “beyond the pale,” is now one of our techniques in what George W. Bush calls “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.” In today’s column, Herbert asks who are we? (Emphasis mine):

The president put us on this path away from the better angels of our nature, and he has shown no inclination to turn back. Lately he has touted legislation to try terror suspects in a way that would make a mockery of the American ideals of justice and fairness. To get a sense of just how far out the administration’s approach has been, consider the comments of Brig. Gen. James Walker, the top uniformed lawyer for the Marines. Speaking at a Congressional hearing last week, he said no civilized country denies defendants the right to see the evidence against them. The United States, he said, “should not be the first.”

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a conservative South Carolina Republican who is a former military judge, said, “It would be unacceptable, legally, in my opinion, to give someone the death penalty in a trial where they never heard the evidence against them.”

How weird is it that this possibility could even be considered?

…

We could benefit from looking in a mirror, and absorbing the shock of not recognizing what we’ve become.

If we are engaged in “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century,” I’d like us to be the good guys, please.