Alinsky Seems to Be Ruling (Updated)

After all, his most effective disciple is now president of the United States. Today’s selective outrage over “torturing” the sworn enemies of our country appears to be a well crafted application of “Pick the target, freeze it personalize it, and polarize it.” The campaign has been so effective that even an experienced FOX journalist spewed foul language on air in denouncing the practice.

All of the commotion, of course deflects attention from the message of recent tea parties or continuing questions about smiling photo ops with Hugo Chavez. But the real problem is that continued scapegoating not only harms the chosen victims, but society as a whole. It makes reasoned discussion impossible and encourages mob rule.

The manufactured crisis has become a morality play that ignores several key issues:
1. Each of the enhanced interrogation techniques, including water boarding, was first “tried out” on American soldiers and determined to be safe.
2. Despite Nancy Pelosi’s statement to the contrary, members of Congress were apprised of the proposals and they approved them.
3. George Bush’s greatest accomplishment was to keep the country safe after 9-11; the only way to denigrate that triumph is to disparage the techniques he used. Otherwise, Obama would have either not released the secret memos or he would have also released the memos showing the good information gained thereby.
4. Threatening to prosecute the lawyers who advised the CIA makes giving a legal opinion a possible crime. And it defines the crime in retrospect. Up until now, it has been unconscionable to make a law regarding crime, then punish people who committed the act before it was considered criminal.

See also Wednesday's entry, Obama Finds New Way to Bash Bush.

Also notice that many of those who are outraged about the enhanced interrogation techniques, including Obama, see nothing wrong with tearing arms and legs off of innocent babies during the process of killing them in the womb.