You Protest Too Much

By VDH.

I am sure that Mr. Daschle gets around Washington more expeditiously to help others through the use of limos. Mr. Geithner is working hard to finance the government, and understandably forgot we must pay Social Security taxes. Mr. Holder can explore legitimate questions about the pros and cons of waterboarding in 2002. The Democratic Senators may now be making legitimate requests about such activity. Mr. Sullivan may rightly raise points about the illegality of these cases of torture. Al Gore may do some good in warning about climate change. And Barney Frank now may be right to suggest renting is preferable to buying for many. Perhaps Barack Obama believes that tribunals and rendition are as necessary now as he once thought them proof of Bush’s sinister nature.

But the problem is not that we all can change our minds as events change, or that acts sometimes are at odds with words. Rather the rub is the vehemence in which views are expressed-and for some, the propensity to slur and slander others, and the readiness even to call for criminal penalties. Once that extremism, fueled by self-righteousness, begins, we rightly suspect the virulence comes not just from the issue in question, but rather from some deep psychological desire for penance, to expiate one’s own past sins by finding their new counterparts in others.