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17 Mar 2007 01:08 pm

Conservatives Against "24"

Once again, The American Conservative leads the way. Money quote:

The devotion to "24" and its protagonist demonstrates what few may care to admit: in the war on terror, the conservative movement has become willing to sacrifice principle to passion and difficult moral reasoning to utility. As escapism, "24" is riveting; as a parable for our time, it is revolting.

Rod Dreher comments here. Money quote:

One can certainly understand the attraction of a Bauer figure in these times, just as Dirty Harry was completely understandable as an expression of the popular anxiety of the 1970s. But as Dougherty points out with reference to Bauer, it's a dangerous temptation for conservatives to accept and esteem a fantasy figure who breaks the law -- especially the moral law (e.g., torture) -- in the service of his mission. And conservatives are very quick (and quite accurate) to argue, when it comes to sexuality, that the content of popular culture has real-world consequences by making acceptable previously taboo ideas. As the Jane Mayer piece cited by Dougherty pointed out, "24"'s valorization of torture is having an impact.

I watched Rory Kennedy's HBO documentary, "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," all the way through last night. What she captures best is the chronology of it all, something that seems more damning when viewed from a distance - the initial authorization of torture by the president, the widespread understanding by the torturers at Abu Ghraib themselves that they were doing what Rumsfeld wanted, the techniques at Abu Ghraib spelled out in memos, the move of Miller from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib to Gitmoize the place through torture, Rumsfeld's temper-tantrum at the lack of good intel from Iraq as his war collapsed beneath him - and then the lies Rumsfeld blatantly told to Congress. In retrospect, Rumsfeld's mastery of the bureaucracy worked. His handling of the fallout from Abu Ghraib was masterful. Even now, no one has been held responsible up the chain of command. Even now, many Americans still don't realize that Abu Ghraib reflected presidential policy. The mistake was in letting anyone find out about it - and, without those photographs, you can be sure that torture advocates, like Charles Krauthammer, would be denying anything of this sort took place at all. The torture bill last year gave legal impunity to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Yoo, Cambone and Gonzales. A full independent inquiry is still necessary. The next president should demand one.

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