Many of its supposedly radical features fit neatly in the mainstream of American presidential history. Extraordinary rendition? That practice (in which we send terrorists to foreign countries to be interrogated under laxer rules) began under President Clinton. Aggressive interrogations, for good or ill, surely predate 2001. Holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo without benefit of a trial? As terrorism expert Andrew C. McCarthy notes in National Review, we were doing that under the first President Bush and under Clinton to innocent Haitian refugees, who got even less due process than we give captured enemy combatants.

Even the invasion of Iraq will probably seem to historians, in part, as a continuation of trends begun in the Persian Gulf War and extended by Clinton's (and Britain's) attacks in 1998.

Jonah, allow me to paraphrase your mentor William F. Buckley: I won't insult your intelligence by pretending that you actually believe what you just said.

Goldberg's gentle euphemisms about torture simply demonstrate how squeamish he is on the subject. "Interrogated under laxer rules" -- that means torture, doesn't it? Why can't a straight-talking conservative tough guy like Goldberg suck it up and actually use the word?

And what to make of Goldberg's next sentence? "Aggressive interrogations, for good or ill, surely predate 2001"?

What does that mean -- aside from the fact that Goldberg again flinches when confronted with the actual word, like a vampire confronted with a crucifix?

There's no question that torture predated 2001. Torture, alas, is a sin that has dogged the human species since pretty much the beginning. But it wasn't standard operating procedure for our military, and it wasn't protected by our courts, and it wasn't defended by our government, and it wasn't glorified in the mainstream media. Not until the Bush administration and its torture-porn-addled enablers got into town.

And when prisoners are sent to countries for the specific purpose of having them tortured, that's quite a different thing than what happened during the Clinton administration -- or any other administration. The same goes with the detention of Haitians at Guantanamo Bay -- Camp X-Ray didn't exist, and they weren't there to be tortured -- as Goldberg knows full well.

And to equate the first Gulf war and the war against Serbia with our current occupation of Iraq is to be deliberately obtuse. The case for war with Iraq consisted of a tissue of lies. It was deliberately framed as necessary to forestall an attack on us by the Iraqis; a claim that would have struck the sensible people in Congress as absurd on its face, had there actually been any sensible people in Washington during the run-up to the war.

It's sad, but certainly not surprising, that Goldberg sees trashing the reputation of the United States, throughout its history, as the only way to redeem his precious President.