At last — common sense about the US

Those of us who love the US but loathe its current President and his regime currently face a ridiculous kind of totalitarianism. It’s the “You’re either for us or against us” mentality, and it’s patently absurd. How nice then to find a splendid article by Jonathan Freedland condemning this much more eloquently than I can. Quote:

“So today I issue a plea, in defence of that little sliver of middle ground where I – and, apparently a good chunk of the public – want to stand. We want to be pro-America and anti-Bush. We want to applaud what the United States stands for, even as we express our dislike for this particular administration.

This should not be brain surgery. No great intellectual agility is required to laud the founding ideals of the American republic while simultaneously lambasting Washington’s current masters. You can admire the 1787 declaration that we, the people should be sovereign – and still insist that bombing Iraq is not the best way to get at Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. No contradiction. ”