Add some meow mix, and stir..

The coronation speech: "We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation -- the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.

We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies. Yet, rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty."

Let us play this speech our president has given to all our captives, all over the world. We will play the speech for them, and it will break them.They shall know that Americans do not see their humiliation or despair, that the man responsible for their mistreatment believes in human dignity, human rights, and human liberty. "All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors." That man calls out to them, and says that "freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul." Let us play this speech to those who hunger in our dark places. Then they will understand that they are not human anymore, that there is no hope for them. If they were human, then they could have freedom, dignity, and liberty. They are in the custody of the country that wants that for all humans -- that wants to spread freedom. Ergo, they are not human.

That he can say those words, knowing what he knows about what has been done by this country, by his administration, in the name of freedom -- that he can say those words, and mean them, and believe in his great mission...

This is an incomprehensible post. I apologize. I have a headache. Some people are not people, but vermin. Everyone else gets freedom, but the vermin get waterboarding and permanent detention.

And those of us who get freedom? We get the word, sure. Words are easy. As long as we think we are free, then we're free. Right? And if in 20 years we come to see what we've done, what was done in our names, then will we say "but we were not free! it is not our faults"?

Andrew Sullivan prints some letters from his readers. "Hate to sound flip, but relax" says one. "What was being done ... is not torture by any conventional definition... At worst, we 'waterboard'. At best, they behead. I'm sorry, but these are new times with a truly evil enemy..." says one reader.

Bully on Andrew for not relaxing. Please, god, let us never relax about this.