Important stuff from digby

Digby is one of the most worthwhile writers today on American politics and recent political history — but you knew that. Here’s an excerpt from a long — but important — post you should read.

But our nation has a past which should preclude any person who’s taken a high school level course in American history to believe what Andrew Sullivan claims to have believed prior to the invasion of Iraq. America has a long history of immoral deeds, done by men who at the time we all might have assumed were moral and upright too. Unless you think that Native American genocide, slavery, lynching, jailing without due process, apartheid, medical experiments on prisoners and military personnel, forced sterilization, wars of aggression etc are moral acts, you can’t possibly think that what Bush has done is unique to despoiling “the meaning of America.” The meaning of America has always been ambivalent and confused. (Thomas Jefferson, the writer of that great document about liberty and unalienable rights owned slaves, for gawds sakes)

Of course, Bush was capable of immoral acts. He’s a human being. That is why we should never blindly trust our leaders’ (mostly manufactured) “characters” and rely instead on the rule of law and the constitution. And it’s why we must be vigilant in defending ourcivil liberties and democratic processes even when we really, really love our leaders. Humans are flawed, power corrupts, leaders are stupid, shit happens. You can’t depend on powerful people’s good intentions. It’s more than a little bit silly that so many adults seem to need to maintain a romantic fiction that elected leaders are more prophet than politician, but many of them do.