But Obama isn’t Black. He insists he isn’t. He has risen above it, haven’t you heard?

Douthat describes the “riotous” 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, but never makes clear his pun. He jumps straight to how well Perlstein recounts its television coverage, skipping the famously brutal treatment of demonstrators by Chicago’s mayor and police, and Nixon’s purported role in encouraging that.

He gives Perlstein good marks, especially for his discussions of Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon, but sandwiches that between too thickly cut slices of bread: Nixon and his times are over-researched and now almost boring; Nixon bequeathed us “domestic tranquility”, for which we should be eternally grateful. His condiments, too, are bland and lack unoriginality: “Nixonland is a historical narrative worth savoring—but one worth ar­guing with as well.” Then he adds the horseradish:

“[P]erhaps inevitably, [Perlstein] tends to be tougher on right-wing shibboleths” than on liberal ones….[he] is unsparing in his critique of the political failures of mid-century liberalism; I only wish he had meditated more deeply on liberalism’s policy failures…. But to do so might have required him to give Nixon’s Republican Party—if not Nixon himself—more credit for restoring domestic tranquillity [sic] than I imagine he thinks the GOP deserves.”

“Domestic tranquility”. Not how Sam Ervin, Frank Church, or thoughtful historians would describe Mr. Nixon’s legacy. He came after the civil rights riots of the sixities, the early anti-war riots, and the global student riots of 1968. He ultimately presided over quieter times, but his leadership did not lead us to them. In fact, Nixon’s legacy is the gift that keeps on giving. Dick Cheney is arguably Nixon II, the former aide who sees himself as the tough political “son” who won’t give in where dad fell down; who will leave America more prosperous and secure – at least more FUBARed – than when he found it.

Douthat admits none of that, instead remembering Nixon fondly, gelded of his paranoia, intensity and capacity for criminality:

A cynic in an age of zeal, a politician without principles at a moment that valued ideological purity above all, [Nixon] was too small a man to threaten the republic. His corruptions were too petty; his schemes too penny-ante; and his spirit too cowardly, too self-interested, too venal to make him truly dangerous.

Mr. Cheney is also a small man who lacks principles, but his corruptions and schemes are not “petty” or “penny-ante”, and that makes him a more dangerous man than his hero.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/nixon
[emph. added]

Would that Yoo ends up like Joe did.

“We have in our hands a group . . .” said John.

Joe would have had no qualms about torture, but he didn’t have the clout to make it happen. John had no such problems, even if he was a tool for those with the real clout.

There is no violence and the Marine’s comments are tragically funny.

In the unlikely event that they missed it, someone like Siun or Gorilla Guides might be interested in this. They also might see more than I do. All I see is the complete worthlessness of trying to occupy a foreign country. The Marine confirms this, because of the language barrier. I think he’s also alluding to what they see as their primary mission: “to be bullet sponges.” These people have to endure long periods of undending boredom broken only by bursts of life-threatening terror.

Bring ‘em home. This isn’t what my tax dollars should pay for.

Maintaining military supplies to Afghanistan this year will be a great challenge for the US, which is why Richard Boucher, the top US official for South Asia, and US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte were in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency recently to try to get tribal elders on side. But because of the Taliban’s threats, only three elders turned up for secret meetings.