Hertzberg on the Election and Bush

Hendrik Hertzberg, one of the most astute observers of the American political scene, wrote the following for the current issue of the The New Yorker

"The great bafflement of next week’s midterm congressional elections is that there is even a sliver of a hint of a shadow of a doubt about the outcome. The polls are unequivocal.

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"There’s a lively debate among historians over the question of whether the record of the forty-third President, compiled with the indispensable help of a complaisant Congress, is the worst in American history....That the record is appalling is by now beyond serious dispute. It includes an unending deficit...; the subcontracting of environmental, energy, labor, and health-care policymaking to corporate interests; repeated efforts to suppress scientific truth; a set of economic and fiscal policies that have slowed growth, spurred inequality, replenished the ranks of the poor and uninsured, and exacerbated the insecurities of the middle class; and, on Capitol Hill, a festival of bribery...

"In 2002 and 2004, the ruling party avoided retribution for offenses like these by exploiting the fear of terrorism. What is different this time is that the overwhelming failure of the Administration’s Iraq gamble is now apparent to all…You can read all about it, not only in the government’s own recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate, which reports that the Iraq war has intensified the danger of Islamist terrorism, but also in a shelf of books…that document the mendacity, incompetence, lawlessness, and ideological arrogance surrounding the origins and conduct of that war.

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"But the most depraved pronouncement of the week came from the Vice-President of the United States, Dick Cheney. In an interview…Cheney was asked if he didn’t think it was “silly” even to debate about “dunking a terrorist in water.” “I do agree,” he replied. The interviewer pressed: “Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?” Cheney: “It’s a no-brainer for me.”

"The “dunk in water” they were talking about is waterboarding. It has been used by the Gestapo, the North Koreans, and the Khmer Rouge. After the Second World War, a Japanese soldier was sentenced to twenty-five years’ hard labor for using it on American prisoners. It is torture, and torture is not a no-brainer. It is a no-souler. The no-brainer is the choice on Election Day."
— Hendrik Hertzberg