Meanwhile . . .

. . . while the frenzy is focused on Rove, havoc is wrecked in others areas. A military report on Gitmo itemizes the kind of treatment prisoners can expect to receive from the land of the free, home of the brave. Mohamed al-Qahtani, said to be the 20th hijacker, was forced to wear a leash and perform dog tricks, menaced by a dog, told he was a homosexual and forced to dance with a male interrogator, told his female relatives were whores, and regularly subject to 20 hour long interrogations for a two month period.

But this isn't torture, it was interrogation sanctioned by the Pentagon and deemed "safe, secure and humane" by the Air Force investigator making the report.

Hello? Hello? What planet do I live on? Apparently, I'm occupying a totally different ethical space or something. Ladies and gentlemen, I get that interrogation isn't supposed to be a tea party. I'm not expecting kid gloves and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. But it seems to me that there must be other effective forms of interrogation that don't involve degradation. Other forms that don't stoop to the level at which our government believes these "enemy combatants" grovel. Shouldn't we be better than them?

That's what really sucker punches me in the gut here, in the whole torture Gitmo Abu Ghraib mess. Once again, the US has come to stand for something other than freedom and courage and the Bill of Rights. Once again, the US is taking the moral low ground.

Maybe I'm expecting too much. After all, this is the country where the Runaway Bride got more press coverage than Dafur. Where we care more about Jen's pain over Brad and Angelina than Mukhtaran Bibi's pain from her gang rape and subsequent mistreatment by the Pakistani government.

Between the war and the Gitmo/torture/Abu Ghraib crap and Rove and the absurd Republican talking points designed to deflect substantive discussion of Rove's felonious behavior, I'm feeling a bit worn down tonight. Can you tell?

Until tomorrow,
Liz