Monday, September 20, 2004
A Carafe of Whup-ass
One of the defining characteristics of our age is the way the off-the-charts-loony so swiftly becomes acceptable. Imagine how we might have reacted five years ago to the idea that the Supreme Court might settle a disputed presidential election by ignoring law and precedent to install the candidate more to the liking of the majority. Or that half-a-dozen of the amendments in the Bill of Rights might be altered by the Justice Department with the happy compliance of 99 senators and millions of Americans. We would have considered it all absurd, and the circumstances by which it could happen would have seemed the stuff of fiction.
So it is with internment. Before 9/11, internment was considered a great American shame—how we locked up Japanese-Americans in the West after Pearl Harbor on suspicion of nothing, entirely out of fear. Immediately after 9/11, the only people talking about internment were spittle-dripping wingnuts. But this summer, internment has morphed from unmentionable to thinkable—and given the way the impossible has become real in recent years, there’s no way to rule out its becoming policy eventually. Michelle Malkin, a genuinely unpleasant B-list pundit, made her bid for the A-list with In Defense of Internment, a book arguing that FDR was right and that internment may be necessary again with the country in such grave danger. Over the weekend, columnist John Leo picked up her thesis. Leo’s in a distinctly bigger league than Malkin—his work appears in the Wall Street Journal and is widely syndicated elsewhere. And for him to take internment seriously represents, according to blogger Eric Muller, another instance of the incremental creeping of an off-the-wall idea toward acceptability.
So much nightmare fuel and so few nights to actually sleep.
Recommended Reading: Blogger Iowahawk has some slogan ideas for John Kerry. My favorites:
One of the defining characteristics of our age is the way the off-the-charts-loony so swiftly becomes acceptable. Imagine how we might have reacted five years ago to the idea that the Supreme Court might settle a disputed presidential election by ignoring law and precedent to install the candidate more to the liking of the majority. Or that half-a-dozen of the amendments in the Bill of Rights might be altered by the Justice Department with the happy compliance of 99 senators and millions of Americans. We would have considered it all absurd, and the circumstances by which it could happen would have seemed the stuff of fiction.
So it is with internment. Before 9/11, internment was considered a great American shame—how we locked up Japanese-Americans in the West after Pearl Harbor on suspicion of nothing, entirely out of fear. Immediately after 9/11, the only people talking about internment were spittle-dripping wingnuts. But this summer, internment has morphed from unmentionable to thinkable—and given the way the impossible has become real in recent years, there’s no way to rule out its becoming policy eventually. Michelle Malkin, a genuinely unpleasant B-list pundit, made her bid for the A-list with In Defense of Internment, a book arguing that FDR was right and that internment may be necessary again with the country in such grave danger. Over the weekend, columnist John Leo picked up her thesis. Leo’s in a distinctly bigger league than Malkin—his work appears in the Wall Street Journal and is widely syndicated elsewhere. And for him to take internment seriously represents, according to blogger Eric Muller, another instance of the incremental creeping of an off-the-wall idea toward acceptability.
So much nightmare fuel and so few nights to actually sleep.
Recommended Reading: Blogger Iowahawk has some slogan ideas for John Kerry. My favorites:
Projecting American Strength Through Infinitely Complex NuanceIowahawk is conservative, but he's a rare bird (insert rimshot here)--he's legitimately funny, and not in the usual pulling-wings-off-flies-is-funny conservative way.
Fear Not America, I Have Deigned to Lead You
The Next Time America is Attacked, I Promise To Open Up a Carafe of Whupass
I Have Five More Words For George Bush--Call Off Your On-Bringers
