Andrew Sullivan finally said something I agree with: What [Abu Ghraib] reveal[s] is something true: Americans are no better and no worse as human beings than anyone else. They can become savages as well. But our system - the open press, the internal reviews, the democratic accountability - minimizes the damage of our flawed human nature. That's exactly right. And that's why decisions like Rumsfeld's [...] and unchecked executive power at Gitmo are such bad ideas. That's the whole point I've been trying to make in some of my recent posts: Power must be checked because humans (all humans) abuse power.

It's nice that Andrew Sullivan recognizes that American exceptionalism is not ultimately sustainable, nor can it be justified, because Americans aren't another, special, breed of being, we're just humans, like everyone else -- but it would be nicer if Sullivan was able to recognize that the people he has been defending and championing (at least until recently), have no real interest in supporting and strengthening the very institutions which he points out as being necessary to keep the baser devils of our nature at bay, and that they have, in fact, deliberately and systematically weakened those institutions at every opportunity.

Publius is correct, all humans abuse power, something the Founders knew and took steps to counteract. Bush's agenda --or, rather, the agenda of the powers and interests which are behind Bush -- has little or nothing to do with that and, in actuality, requires that those checks and balances and the careful partitioning and molding of the political power structure, be subverted and annulled in order that their goals be achieved. That's the way they run the country, and that's the way they're running the war in Iraq, and that's why those abuses occured.

They didn't just happen to happen, or because Americans are inherently evil (although it's understandable that Muslims and people around the world may take away that message), they came about because of decisions and actions rising from the agenda and ideology of the Bush administration, the right-wing in general, and the monied interests that control the Republican party.