Dear George,
To flourish, depravity must wear a suit and speak in measured tones using words that imply compassion and reason. When it speaks, it must condemn the very measures it supports. As depravity spreads its tentacles, that which once shocked is treated as routine, and the outrage it once sparked is marginalized as strident naiveté.
It had appeared your nomination of Michael B. Mukasey was on the ropes because he refused to condemn the use of waterboarding without further study. This brought a small ripple of outrage from the Senate Judicial Committee and the nomination looked DOA.
That was until the democrats rode to the rescue by caving. All of a sudden, sen. Chuck Schumer (d. NY) and sen. Diane Feinstein (d. Calif.) announced they would support him, thus assuring his confirmation by the committee.
Their reason is telling: It seems Mukasey promised them that if congress passed a law banning harsh interrogation methods, he would enforce it. Mind you, we are talking about a law that would include signing statements, interpretations, rulings, parsings and convoluted definitions of just what constitutes harsh interrogation methods. And this assumes that congress will pass such a law, which will never happen because banning harsh interrogation methods might make the democrats appear to be soft on terrorism, and they would standby and let the entire world be incinerated before allowing that to happen.
That was a watershed moment, George. It is no longer a question of torture or no torture, which was once the central question with only fringe-hugging wackos supporting torture. Now the moral question is reduced to a question of definition. It is okay to torture as long as it doesn’t fit the definition of torture as defined by the torturer.
Mukasey’s inability to tell if waterboarding constitutes torture is illustrative of the inroads depravity has made into polite society. Ten years ago, the question of torture would have been a no-brainer. Now it is a sign of Mukasey’s integrity that he can’t tell the difference between torture and no torture.
Depravity is succeeding because the de-ethnicized children of the middle class are raised as blank wax tablets upon which anything can be imprinted, and the spiritual passion that is the foundation of moral outrage has been neutered and reduced to a dogmatic eunuch that worries more about stability and good behavior than about the presence of evil within us.
In that small concession to depravity, softly uttered almost as an afterthought, is your victory and your legacy. By slow, incremental steps, depravity has become business as usual. The public has been desensitized to cruelty, bigotry and the naked application of power. Once again, you have shown that depravity thrives best in an atmosphere of apathy and distraction, and that given time and sophisticated marketing, cruelty becomes a matter of a numbing routine.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
6:20:52 AM 
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