Money:
Few things are more repellent than watching the contemporary Right in America invoke the principles of the Founders -- in general -- to justify their warped and lawless authoritarianism. But nothing is more repulsive than watching them pretend that Thomas Paine -- of all people -- has anything to do with them (Glenn Beck actually wrote his most recent book based on the explicit pretense that he is the modern day Paine). Any casual reading of Paine makes clear that, today, he would be so far on what is deemed the "left" side of the spectrum that you'd be unable to find him. Paine is nothing but what Joe Klein refers to as a "crazy civil liberties absolutist" and what Rush Limbaugh similarly calls "far, fringe, lunatic kooks, far left radical lunatic fringe."
The Right today argues that condemning torture is wrong because the people who were tortured were just Terrorists -- barely human -- and they deserve no defense, not even the force of law. Thomas Paine argued as a first principle that those devoted to liberty "must guard even his enemy from oppression." Could the contrast be any more stark?
Maybe even more importantly, Digby points out that the constant "restarts" on the torture revelations are dilatory and hurtful to the ultimate goal. All of this has been revealed over and over again. Not only did we torture, we tortured innocents, we murdered and disappeared captives held without trial, and it was all approved from the highest levels. The notion that there is anything more or new to reveal is simply wrong. The Holder investigation is good news, but it is long overdue and needs to now move forward unimpeded.
