Holy cow.
Normally, I don't really like Frank Rich that much. I read his column when people beg/force me to, but many times I find him to be too wishy-washy for my tastes. I know a lot of folks love him around here, but I'm normally kinda "meh" regarding Frank.
Not anymore! In an article entitled "The Banality of Bush White House Evil" (! - in reference to a book by Hannah Arendt, according to commenters shii and Dana Houle), Mr. Rich unequivocally states:
(But) there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, and the White House knew it. Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus "intelligence" from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding.
In my view, this is a very explosive Op-Ed because it links everything together in a very fair, concise, and (most of all) extremely damaging manner. For people like me, who like his/her facts to be convenient and easy-to-find, this particular column is a goldmine. The entire article is definitely worth your time.
Frank Rich smashes down ALL of the Republican talking points in one noteworthy piece, accompanied with appropriate links. He correctly surmises that:
We don’t like our evil to be banal.
According to Dictionary.com, the definition of "banal" is:
ba·nal (bə-nāl', bā'nəl, bə-näl')
adj. Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite
I believe that Frank Rich not only said that evil was habitual in the Bush White House, but that it was motherfucking common. That is quite a statement, Mr. Rich, so you better be able to back it up.
And can he back it up? Hellz yeah! There are 3 money shots in the article, and I'm giving you guys one right here:
Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to "24"; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks.
Just ... wow! The people who authorized torture truly disgust me, on a moral and ethical level, so I hope this doesn't seem crass: being that the Democrats haven't had much of a voice during the past 8 years (if at all), I am getting kind of EXCITED that this stuff might actually be investigated and/or prosecuted! It's about freaking time!
The next paragraph stuck out like a sore thumb to me, because it tells us everything we cool liberals already knew, but now have actual confirmation of.
The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: "A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful." As higher-ups got more "frustrated" at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, "there was more and more pressure to resort to measures" that might produce that intelligence.
I have taken too long already putting together this diary, and I'll bet there are already 3 of them on the Recent List and one on the Rec List, so let me get to the bottom-line for Mr. Rich, and the absolute BEST part of the article. Your showcase showdown today begins with ... A NEW CAR!
President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.
AG Holder: it's presently 1:08 a.m. on Sunday, April 26, 2009. Howz about your appoint that Special Prosecutor by oh, say, Monday, April 27? Works for me. Works for Frank Rich, apparently, too.
I'm gonna start a fan club.
P.S. It was just as I suspected. :) teacherken has a very eloquent essay regarding a different paragraph in Rich's article (not highlighted here).