Ronald Reagan, Leftist

Greenwald bemoans "how extremist our political consensus has become" against the rule of law:

The express policies of the right-wing Ronald Reagan “applying the rule of law to terrorists”; delegitimizing Terrorists by treating them as “criminals”; and compelling the criminal prosecution of those who authorize torture are now considered on the Leftist fringe. Merely advocating what Reagan explicitly adopted as his policy “to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against” Terrorists is now the exclusive province of civil liberties extremists. In those rare cases when Obama does what Reagan’s policy demanded in all instances and what even Bush did at times namely, trials and due process for accused Terrorists he is attacked as being “Soft on Terror” by Democrats and Republicans alike. And the mere notion that we should prosecute torturers (as Reagan bound the U.S. to do) or even hold them accountable in ways short of criminal proceedings is now the hallmark of a Far Leftist Purist.

And a Reagan-Thatcher pragmatic Christian Tory like me is now a conservative heretic. And a centrist like Obama is a communist. God help us.