The immorality of the Bush administration

Over at Daily Kos, Hunter addresses the one thing he will remember most about the Bush administration: its complete immorality, even as its leader claims to be in direct contact with God. It's worth reading the entire post, but here's a taste:

I will remember the Bush administration not for any bold speeches, but for an unending sequence of snide, guttural croaks in front of podiums, in which the latest blasphemy against mankind or God is uttered with perfect assurance, or with a dismissive sneer, or with ominous opines on the motivations of those that think differently.

There were those that considered "preemptive" war an abomination; they were considered naive, and dismissed as artifacts of an earlier time with shamefullyrigid thinking.

There were those that thought bombing the cities of Iraq, regardless of the viciousness and corruption of their leader, under the confused banner of maybe al Qaeda or something was too high a price for an uninvolved civilian population to pay, regardless of the actions of that leader. An opinion like that was taken as evidence of secret sympathies for that leader.

There were those that thought the Geneva Conventions should apply; they were dismissed as rubes. There were those who thought those that were turned in to United States forces as terrorists should have, at some point, a trial: the larger voice howled of the danger of giving any voice to those people, whether innocent or not.

There were those that thought that, even casting aside evidence that torture does not work, even casting aside laws against it, even casting aside the impossibility of
separating guilty from innocent in front of the teeth of a barking dog or using water and a rag, torture is immoral; for speaking such thoughts, the speakers become hated.

At the same time, we were lectured on the will of God from those that see hurricanes as divine judgement against tolerance; we were told that intolerance is the moral position. We were told that if there is even "a one percent" chance that someone is a terrorist, granting them doubt or mercy was a fool's game.

We were told, in short, that calculated brutality was a requirement of government. In the end, the greatest condemnation of the Bush administration is not that they believe that, but that they have almost managed to get us to believe it.

If it were merely the war on terrorism, that would be something different, though not necessarily better, but in every aspect of governance we continually have been told that the ethical position is the stupid, foolish one, or that being offended at corruption is the childish position.

No news outlets demanded answers, when the Justice Department was staffed with those loyal to party, not country; it was considered expected. The outing of a CIA agent as payback was politics as normal; the urgings to prosecutors to prosecute Americans differently according to party affiliation was for a long while presumed merely one of the perks of power. The task of rebuilding Iraq was considered secondary to staffing it with die-hard conservatives, even if they had not even the slightest bit of expertise towards the job. Scientific reports by the government were either quashed or the findings changed in order to fit The Approved Version Of Reality; it barely resulted in whimpers. Forget the difficult or controversial decisions, even the most basic ones were reduced to simple equations of party advantage and
ideological loyalty.