"... I've made this point before with you and will make it again: America can survive looking unjust, cruel, overly aggressive - indeed, these things can prove serviceable in wartime, certainly Lincoln seemed to think so, and FDR - our commitment to the rights of individuals and to freedom pulls us back from any abyss we find ourselves tempted by. What is much more injurious and worrisome for a great power is to appear weak - we cannot afford to look weak, the consequences of that will prove much more dire than Cheney's brief flirtation with putative torture. This liberal obsession with Bush era excesses does nothing but make us look weak, besotted by a whining angst and whimpers of conscience. I mean, I assume Mr Ricks, given your field of interest, you're a student of history - show me the great power that has prospered governed by such a cloying and sentimental display of sympathetic weakness. They don't exist, and for a very good reason.
Bush made a mistake - big surprise. Get over it..."
