It's easy to lose perspective on just how much damage the Bush-Cheney years have caused to fundamental American institutions–including, of course(*)the rule of law.(*) Someone coined the term "scandal fatigue", and I think it helps explain how this tortured detainee or that violation of criminal law gets lost in an avalanche of wrongdoing and incompetence–from Katrina to the fired US Attorneys, from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, warrantless wiretapping to paid propagandists, Brownie to Scooter Libby, the Bush-Cheney years have left us all utterly exhausted.

Andrew Bacevich has(*)reviewed a new book by New Yorker staff writer jane Mayer (maybe she will start dropping the New Yorker tag from her resume after the magazine's frightful Obama caricature) that reminds us of the scope of what has taken place over the past seven years.(*) Mayer's book, The Dark Side, catalogs the worst wrongdoings of the Bush administration–holding detainees, including U.S. citizens, for years without charges, creating an "American gulag" where thousands of detainees (many of whom are innocent and ultimately released) are "subjected to(*)ritual abuse and humiliation", and "making torture the official law of the land in all but name".(*) It is easy to mistake these as "allegations" (Bacevich even uses that word)–in fact, Mayer has documented these facts with corroboration from military officials, intelligence professionals, and "conservative Bush appointees".

It is hard to write about this without sounding overly dramatic, but the(*)reality is that American democracy is unmoored, wildly off course.(*) Die-hard Bush supporters seem to think that the 80-plus % of us who understand that the country is moving in the wrong direction take some pleasure from that fact.(*) Hardly.(*) I am outraged, frustrated, let down, and committed to seeing the United States return to its ideals–the rule of law, open government, due process, basic humanity.(*)

There is a lot to clean up, a lot to set right.(*) The first step is understanding what has gone wrong.(*) John McCain helped Bush win re-election, accepted his endorsement, and appears with him at fundraising events.(*) I don't think Obama is perfect, but he understands that it is time to close the book on the past seven years and to move toward(*)fundamental democratic ideals we once took for granted




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