Well, I sure did, and do. I hate to quote Alan Dershowitz, that apologist for torture, but God help us if this is how we bring down our leaders. OK, I paraphrase, but you get the idea. Should it be this easy? Should we be able to pull from our quivers any among arrows of noted weaknesses whenever someone in power decides to fling one? Who gets to decide?
Anyhow, the piling on is not only unseemly, but portends the very same threat to the mythic structure of our state as does this vulnerability of genuine leaders, rendering, apparently, genuine leadership nigh on impossible! Bill Clinton anyone?
So, OK, Bill's error was to answer that question "briefs or boxers" and thus confuse rock star with politician, and no I never did love him so well. I guess noone noted the error at the time, or to be clear I didn't note who was noting because the man frankly didn't interest me, my dear. But oh for the love of God!!!!
And I think Dershowitz' error, apologist for torture or for Israel, falls into the same category: he confuses the fact that if I, say, am alone in the presence of the key to the salvation of many people, then of course I can and should do whatever it takes to get that key. This being, duh, rather more like disembowling your child to get the actual key to turn off the bomb. You don't wait for orders, nor would you act on them if they came. You either know what to do and do it, or you don't. This would be a very different matter from defining, somehow, those limited and limiting conditions where the order to torture would be acceptable.
Please!
Is this the state of our legal education (I doubt anyone thinks so)? No, I think Alan has discredited himself on Israel in just the same way the pile-on for whatever we perceive to be the latest greatest hyperbolic hypocrisy discredits any notion that we want or are ready for self-government. What'd you say Pogo? You say the pilers on are the greatest hypocrites?? Hear! Hear!!
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