A reader writes:
I find it strange that the complaints of your alleged apostasy center principally around your opposition to torture. I was unsurprised by the initial right-wing silence on the torture issues, and the minimization of Abu Graib seemed predictable. Either version of denial imply a deep regret but a characteristic unwillingness to criticize a Republican administration. But now we're getting complaints that you're not sufficiently pro-torture, as though the Republican party is proudly the party of torture. It seems mere rationalization has transformed into something something else, as though rationalization wasn't enough anymore.
Is this typical human nature? Is the emotional solution to tolerating horror the eventual embrace of it?
First silence. Then denial. Then support of the insupportable. Then vilification of the dissenters. The pattern is as old as time.