U.S. ‘Thumbs Its Nose’ at Rights, Amnesty Says: “In coordinated broadsides from London and Washington, Amnesty International accused the Bush administration on Wednesday of condoning ‘atrocious’ human rights violations, thereby diminishing its moral authority and setting a global example encouraging abuse by other nations.” (New York Times )

With the Gloves Off: “A photo of President Bush gingerly holding a month-old baby was on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. Mr. Bush is in the habit of telling us how precious he thinks life is, all life.

The story was about legislation concerning embryonic stem cell research, and it included a comment from Tom DeLay urging Americans to reject ‘the treacherous notion that while all human lives are sacred, some are more sacred than others.’

Ahh, pretty words. Now I wonder when Mr. Bush and Mr. DeLay will find the time to address – or rather, to denounce – the depraved ways in which the United States has dealt with so many of the thousands of people (many of them completely innocent) who have been swept up in the so-called war on terror.

People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to ‘disappear’ in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships.” — Bob Herbert (New York Times op-ed)

“I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay open than if we shut it down.” — Thomas Friedman (New York Times op-ed)