corrente

Missed this column from columnist Dimitri Vassilaros it came out. Poor W. Nobody likes him anymore—not even the wingers who own him.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has more tolerance for torture than for adult films.

A couple of adult film producers based in California are being prosecuted in Pittsburgh by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan. The tapes were purchased through the mail as part of an obscenity investigation. News reports suggest the story lines (what there are of them, anyway) cannot be described graphically in a family newspaper. But the action among the consenting adult actors is scripted. It is not real. Repeat after me: It's only a movie, it's only a movie.

The actors were not tortured to make the films, and the customers were not tortured to purchase them. Yet, Ashcroft's department wants to make a statement about what he must see as moral depravity.

Your federal government will go across the country from Pittsburgh to Hollywood to prosecute the people who hired and directed the actors playing roles. And yet, Justice will to go to any lengths to rationalize using torture against real people.

Say what you will about the two adult film defendants, at least they did not torture anyone and then try to justify it with tortured logic.

Can Ashcroft make the same claim?
(via the Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

Well, no, he can't. But then that would presume that the Bush administration can tell the difference between actors playing roles and real people. Or between images of torture, and real acts of torture. Eh?