Just Trust Us By PAUL KRUGMAN

Didn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would eventually come to light?

When the world first learned about the abuse of prisoners, President Bush said that it "does not reflect the nature of the American people." He's right, of course: a great majority of Americans are decent and good. But so are a great majority of people everywhere. If America's record is better than that of most countries — and it is — it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances.

Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable.

Just trust us, John Ashcroft said, as he demanded that Congress pass the Patriot Act, no questions asked. After two and a half years, during which he arrested and secretly detained more than a thousand people, Mr. Ashcroft has yet to convict any actual terrorists. (Look at the actual trials of what Dahlia Lithwick of Slate calls "disaffected bozos who watch cheesy training videos," and you'll see what I mean.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/opinion/11KRUG.html?hp

No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust.

He's right on the tail of the truth....

...on that page than usual this morning. Brooks is, unfortunately, still looking through funny glasss. Wasn't it the left who used to be derided as the ones with the rose colored lenses?

and even the Republicans!

Another terrific column!

He has been telling the truth about this administration, long before it was popular to do so.

watching the wheels come off this kabal

they are up to their eyeballs in scandal but being "good christians" we don't have to worry about nasty sex acts, instead we are treated to human rights abuses here and around the globe.

:puke:

snip>

Just trust us, Paul Bremer said, as he took over in Iraq. What is the legal basis for Mr. Bremer's authority? You may imagine that the Coalition Provisional Authority is an arm of the government, subject to U.S. law. But it turns out that no law or presidential directive has ever established the authority's status. Mr. Bremer, as far as we can tell, answers to nobody except Mr. Bush, which makes Iraq a sort of personal fief. In that fief, there has been nothing that Americans would recognize as the rule of law.

snip>


Krugman nails it again. This is the central point of why everything Bushco says about Iraq sounds so insane. What the US has done is exactly the opposite of what they say they are doing. Even yesterday, Bush* said again that the Iraqis are "better off now that they are free."