Tony Snow dies of cancer

Arrgh! Sorry about the triple posts. It was not intentional.

Margaret - thanks for your comment. I really appreciated both your tone and content; you wrote some stuff I will ponder. Yes, we all lead complex lives, and we are all, all of us, a jewel in our own way and deserve compassion. I get that, and try to operate from that principle, and maybe I'm failing relative to Snow. But I think this administration and this war have legitimately earned the label "evil" and so Snow's actions have earned the same label.

I also understand that Snow didn't see the work he did as evil. Rationalization seems to be one of the human race's supreme talents. Goldhagen wrote an entire book called "Hitler's Willing Executioners" about how ordinary German people came up with all kinds of ways to justify their active involvement in the Nazi killing machine. I'm sure this group included many loving family men and women who didn't see their work as evil, either.

So saying that someone doesn't recognize their actions as evil isn't a good benchmark for deciding whether they were, or how valuable or good that person was as a person. Basically, that kind of moral relativism can lead us straight into the void.

I also can't help wondering, if you and Snow's other defenders were actually forced to live with the results of what he did - live the life of an Iraqi exile - home and business lost, father killed, daughter prostituting herself to feed family - or the life of an Iraqi woman who, for the first time, must wear a burka or risk assassination - or a tortured innocent at Guatanamo - I wonder if you would have any question at all on how evil the whole enterprise has been - and how long it would take you to conclude "Wait, this is evil." A day? An hour? Five minutes?

What this administration did - what Snow helped it do - was kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people - not to mention 4K+ American soldiers - and destroy the lives of millions of others so a small group of Bush's oil company cronies could get no-bid contracts for Iraq's oil (from Bob Herbert's 7/1 NYT column):

Two weeks ago, The Times reported that four Western oil giants were on the verge of signing no-bid contracts that would return them to Iraq, the third-most bountiful petroleum playground on the planet. The deals, expected to be finalized in the next 30 days, were the kind of news that big oil lives for.

Giddy executives singing “Oh Happy Day” could be heard in the corporate offices of Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP, which had been shut out of Iraq for three and a half decades.

We also learned this week that a group of American advisers, led by a team from the State Department, played a key role in drawing up the contracts between the companies and the Iraqi government. Chevron and several smaller oil companies are also on the verge of signing contracts.

What could be more evil than to kill hundreds of thousands so that a few may profit? Recall that, during the looting in the early days of the war, the US govt left the fabled Iraqi national museum totally unguarded, as well as numerous government offices, hospitals, utilities, etc. - but managed to guard the Oil Ministry. Their priorities was clear from the first.

What I find surprising about the conservatives I run into these days is that they vociferously defend people who are clearly their moral inferiors, and probably their inferiors in many other ways as well. Would you, Margaret, behave the way Bush, etc., did? Would you lie to get us into a war - and keep lying about it? Would you torture? Would you give your friends no bid contracts so they can corruptly profit from devastation you have caused? (Most of us don't countenance no-bid deals in our school boards or local governments; why is it acceptable here?) Vonnegut labeled this behavior "psychopathic," and I think he's right.

Would you question the morality and patriotism of those who disagreed with you? Would you mock Kerry's purple heart? Would you condemn Clinton's infidelities while secretly having had many yourself? Would you call your "friends" (subordinates, really, who can't object) by demeaning nicknames like "turd blossom?" What would you think of someone you happened to run into who did?

Would you deprecate gay marriage saying that "both parents are important in the success of a family" after having abandoned your disabled wife - the one who waited loyally for you while you were a POW - and three kids for an heiress half your age? Would you say Americans are "whiners" who are making up stories about how the economy is faltering, despite enormous evidence that it really is?

I could list dozens of more examples. I know from your response to me that you are a thoughtful, compassionate person who can acknowledge her mistakes and is serious about engaging in dialog. We are all human and all flawed - I have certainly made more mistakes than I would like, and keep making them. But the actions above are really on a different plane of psychopathology and extreme hypocrisy. If you yourself are not operating on that level, then why defend people who are - especially when the stakes are literally life or death?

Thanks for your post, and for listening,
Hillary

Old Sue - your definition of rationalization is wrong - it's a well-characterized psychological defense mechanism - but the rest of your post is compelling. Hillary