And two more quotations — these from articles I've read online today that make interlocking points, to my mind:
Glenn Greenwald on the torture report:
At some point, this blame-shifting has to stop. It should become apparent just how deeply corrupt, toxic and sociopathic the Washington political and media class is. I mean, it would be one thing if this was some isolated aberration, but this is a reflection of what the United States government in so many different ways around the world for a long time — but certainly since the war on terror, when it was intensified.
Robert Parry at Moyers & Company on the demise of The New Republic, and the loud laments in some circles about said demise:
The typical posture of these media-beloved neocons was to pretend that they were bravely standing up against some “liberal” orthodoxy, courageously daring to embrace the Nicaraguan Contras or other right-wing “freedom fighters” despite the danger of taking such principled stands.
The reality was that TNR’s writers were lining up behind the real power structure, standing with the Reagan administration and much of the major media while joining in the bullying of the relatively weak and vulnerable forces in Washington that went against this grain.
Both of these astute observers of the wishy-washy centrist "liberalism" that prevails in beltway media and poltiical circles are absolutely correct. It is, and always has been, about giving carte blanche to the right while excluding the left from the power-making conversation.
