THE ABYSS….Matt Yglesias voices his concern today about….
the creeping Putinization of American life (the Sinclair incident, the threatening letter to Rock The Vote, the specter of the top official in the House of Representatives making totally baseless charges of criminal conduct against a major financier of the political opposition [shades of Mikhail Khodorovsky], the increasing evidence that the ‘terror alert’ system is nothing more than a political prop, the ‘torture memo’ asserting that the president is above the law, the imposition of rigid discipline on the congress, the abuse of the conference committee procedure, the ability of the administration to lie to congress without penalty, the exclusion of non-supporters from Bush’s public appearances, etc.)
That’s a pretty convincing list. And a nice piece of sloganeering, too: “The Putinization of American Life.” I like it.
You know, in one paragraph Matt managed to level a more persuasive indictment of the Bush administration than Arthur Schlesinger Jr. did in an entire book. That’s some good work.
