TPMCafe || A Political Thanksgiving

TPMCafe || A Political Thanksgiving: "We are to the point where a former CIA director publicly calls our Vice President a Vice President for Torture, and where the Washington Post calls our current CIA director a Director for Torture, and yet we cannot get a bill through Congress that would return to our half-century tradition of complying with the Geneva Conventions and extending the obligation not to engage in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to the CIA."

I'm blogging this post that is written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean here at the Wilson School. I'm posting it because I think that it kind of perfectly captures the political, center-left feel of the school as a whole. Some of the comments are right on, but then you see things like the pat on the back for Lindsey Graham and Condi, and you sort of wonder whether the dean could have found better ways to be bipartisan and accomodating to the only (if you can believe it, relatively less extreme) right... I woke up last week (maybe 2 weeks ago?) to Senator Graham on the clock radio railing about how the Guantanamo evil American-hating terrorists don't deserve any rights. You definitely could read in the comments that he felt any mistreatment was fine, probably deserved and who cares if it weren't -- made for the beginnings of a rough day.

The comments that follow are pretty good though. It's just a reminder of where political discourse is in the U.S. these days and what constitutes a challenge to the status quo.