A Nation Led Astray....

Eugene Robinson names one of the twisted paths the Bush administration trod in his op-ed "A Torture Paper Trail." (WaPo)

Robinson decries The Decider's eight years of moral blindness, finding it hard to believe "that George W. Bush, to his eternal shame and our nation's great discredit, made torture a matter of hair-splitting, legalistic debate at the highest levels of the U.S. government. But that's precisely what he did.

"Waterboarding, a technique of simulated drowning, is considered torture virtually everywhere on Earth except in the Bush administration's archive of self-exculpatory memos, directives and opinions."

These directives are typical of this administration's smokescreen maneuvers to hide the awful truth of their monstrous policies and nation-rending failures. Like, a strangling national debt that doesn't even include the almost trillion dollar cost of the invasion of Iraq. Or, reported growth-crippling inflation that doesn't even include energy and food costs.

The Bush government needs money?.... print some.

After eight years of this fiscal recklessness, Bush's U.S. dollar is the Monopoly currency of world markets.

The Decider mouthed "family values" and rattled terrorism bones, hiding behind religious zealots as his bully boys picked our pockets, enriching themselves and their corporate buddies, leaving taxpayers to absorb their financial mess.

As we dig ourselves out of the morass of the Bush legacy, we need to also rescue our sewer-soaked standards of integrity. Justifying torture is just the tip of the Bush administration's moral-failings iceberg, but it's the one all the world can measure us by.

Robinson calls for accountability, asking the next president to expose the Bush administration's torture policy.... "Only when we learn the full story of what happened will we be able to confidently promise, to ourselves and to a world that looks to this country for moral leadership: Never again."