McIlheran Just Following Eichmann's Lead

This will call for a full-scale 'Whitney Gould-ing' at 4th and State...

In a typical "truthiness"-filled post, Mathias of Pundit Nation shows us how people like P-Mac are really just....

The insight made by Hannah Arendt in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem was not only that Adolf Eichmann’s own evil seemed to come from a person who seemed so banal. It was also that Eichmann represented the sort of everyman that had to exist for the Nazis to exercise total control over German life. Hitler didn’t owe his power to the loyalty of his fanatics, but to the acquiescence of the regular German citizen—the ordinary citizens who were only too happy to turn away from the truth, even as greater and greater evils were perpetrated against his neighbors.

The predicate?

As one of only a couple hundred individuals around the country who makes a living as a newspaper columnist, McIlheran’s views are given wide distribution. When he responds to news that his government tortures individuals who are being detained without trial with a joke and folksy shrug, it has an impact. From his perch, he has the opportunity to make torture seem, well, just kind of a normal part of everyday American life, while those who are opposed to it might just be, well, un-American

Go that? Since P-Mac is 'widely distributed' and shrugs off "torture" (really, water-boarding, which is NOT 'torture,') he is comparable to Eichmann, who as we all know, was a close friend of you-know-who.

The requisite disclaimer:

Am I saying that McIlheran is Eichmann? No, but I think he needs to examine which other countries have allowed torture and determine if they have governments he thinks the US wants to be associated with historically.

Shall we believe Mathias, or our lying eyes?

Here's a question for Mikie:

Let's grant ad arguendam that waterboarding is torture. Since we know that Constitutional rights actually do NOT apply to non-citizens or illegal combatants, you obviously rest your case on the proposition that the Natural Law militates against torture--a position which is eminently defensible, by the way.

So, Mikey, now that you've agreed that the Natural Law is so important, when are you going to apply the Natural Law's principles in the case of....oh, say....abortion?

Hmmmmmm?