Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Best line by a smart person I've read all day

"In conclusion, if you think that the things the Bush administration is doing could, in the future, help less benign governments to seize horrifying power--well, I'll agree with you, but only if you also acknowledge that the same could be said for every president since Hoover, and that in fact FDR takes the gold prize for Doing Things That Could Be Used to Install a Dictator. Indeed, FDR is probably the closest thing this country ever came to having a dictator, and we can thank a lot of fast tap-dancing by the Supreme Court and the Senate for not getting us closer still. If FDR doesn't terrify you, then you will have a very stiff uphill battle explaining to me why Bush does." (emphasis added; link)
If you don't regularly read Asymmetrical Information, you should. Some great, accessible economics blogging.

As an aside, I also think Megan says some interesting things about torture in the post, some of which are similar to thoughts I've had. I'm planning on doing a longer post about them at some point, especially given all the attention Andrew Sullivan has been paying to the subject.

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