It appears that the rationale for defending the use of a foreign government to help a sitting President may be to admit it, but to point out that this is business as usual in international relations, and always has been, and so is no big deal. It would be easy to point out instances where the US has toppled regimes that were felt to be objectionable.

 

This being the case, is the problem really that what has historically been swept under the rug— in order to keep the public from being horrified at what has been done, ostensibly to further national interests, sometimes by much-beloved leaders— will no longer stay under the rug?

 

Not to wander too far off the point, but what happened to the "fade-out" in movie romances?

 

Do we assume that there is an unknown amount of dirty work that has to be done, that we'd rather not know about?

 

Even if we'd rather not know about it, would things be better if we tried harder to set the bar higher? I think so; there are lots of things that used to be business as usual, that we have managed to stop doing- importing slaves, for example.

 

Questions, questions.

 

Bob Sanderson

Marion