Daniel made a good point in his post.

I recently read a great article in TIME titled "The Perils of a Righteous President". It deals directly with the issue we face concerning the US governments leadership, in particular, our leaders using their sense of moral superiority to inspire the choices they make. These days it seems there is an inability to keep a distinct line between church and state. Bush has started a war on terror to root out all evil in the world, a war that has no distinct boundaries, a grand crusade in fact. A crusade...sounds familiar eh?

Now after the atrocities of the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, America will have a tougher time convincing "oppressed peoples" that we actually are there to help. Those pictures have now run in every Arab newpaper in the world reducing America to the same level as Saddam himself. We could not have handed extremists a better recruiting tool. I think that for a long time to come, those soldiers have caused the US irreperable damage. The kicker for me is that they were probably just following orders like they're trained to do! Look up the Stanley Milgram experiments at Yale in the 60's for a bit of perspective on following orders (The Perils of Obedience)(Stanley Milgram). Its sad because the way of politics demands that someone pay for these crimes. I doubt Rumsfeld will see any jail time but he seems to have known about what was going on. What a mess!

The moral superiority issues are not limited to Iraq either. Bush seems to always have his hand in some piece of moral pie. If it weren't for the warheadlines plastering every newspaper, the headlines would be covered in same-sex marriage issues of which Bush, "as a christian" is openly opposed. I saw a very telling political cartoon of the Bill of Rights with childish writing on it that read "...except for homos. G.W. Bush". All men are created equal...unless you're gay I guess. My favorite comment from conservatives is that "gay marriage will undermine the foundations of modern civilization". I guess homosexuality is a modern creation eh? Equal rights people... why is that so hard. Can't we just treat people like we crave to be treated or must we always fear each other?

Moral superiority. Why are Christian moral better than Jewish morals or Islamic morals? How do we what we are to accordingly make our decisions?! Is doing "the right thing" so different the world over? Ugg.

Also, Daniel posted a great link to check out. I recommend it and find it to be accurate of my experience as well:

The CNN Effect

Josh