Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09)was not altogether impressed by Obama's announcement of a 30,000 troop escalation in Afghanistan (an "iffy proposition," as Klein put it). But Klein's main point was that Obama should have justified the war differently: "Once you have made the decision to go, or to redouble your efforts, you must lead the charge--passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger."

Then he describes the better way:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse--a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center--who enlisted immediately after the attacks ... and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

It's hard to know what's creepier: suggesting that a president should lie to drum up support for a war, or suggesting he should do so to fight a war you're not so sure about in the first place.

In his latest Salon blog entry (5/1/09, ad-viewing required), Glenn Greenwald displays his find of "a perfect illustration of how severely our political spectrum has shifted in the last two decades and how depraved and extremist our political and media classes have become"--one quote of the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer rebutting those who "believe you never torture. Ever":

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. . . . The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. . . .

as compared to the text from Article II/IV of the "Convention Against Torture, signed and championed" by none other than Ronald Reagan:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. . .  Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offenses under its criminal law.

That Ronald Reagan's ideas "are ones that are now--in the view of our dominant media narrative--the hallmarks of The Hard Left" is clearly demonstrated by the fact that

Reagan's explicit view that the concept of "universal jurisdiction" permits signatory nations (such as Spain) to prosecute torturers from other countries (such as the U.S.) is now considered so fringe that it's almost impossible to find someone in mainstream American debates willing to advocate it.

The New York Times' Travel section featured a February 8 piece by Ned Martel headlined, "In Grenada, Leaving the Past Behind," where the reporter refers to the 1983 U.S. invasion of the tiny Caribbean nation. A more accurate headline might have read, "Leaving the Facts Behind." Here's how Martel summed up the invasion story:

In 1983, American satellites peered down on Point Salines, the southwest corner of Grenada, and detected a newly paved lane toward the sea, plus some nearby armaments and fuel tanks. Cubans had arrived on the island, abetting some coup plotters who captured and then executed the prime minister, and the Reagan administration realized they were watching a hostile military base under construction, some 1,500 miles southeast of Miami.

That's a garbled version of the case for the invasion made by Ronald Reagan, who claimed that he was forced to invade because Grenada was building a military airport at Point Salines as a way station for Soviet planes, and because the coup was endangering U.S. citizens there.

The reality? Reagan loathed Grenada’s popular and Cuba-friendly prime minister, Maurice Bishop, and had been planning an invasion of the island for some time. When Bishop was deposed in an internal coup, Reagan used the event, the airport story and the danger to Americans on the island as pretexts for invading (and imposing a "friendly" government).

Of course, Reagan was lying: The airport was Grenada’s new international airport, designed by a Canadian firm, financed by the British government and Grenada's neighbors, and no secret to anyone. As far as the danger posed to Americans, the chancellor of the medical school that many of the Americans on the island attended charged that the greatest danger his students faced was from the the U.S. invasion.

And what of the Cubans Martel said were there to help topple Bishop? They were almost all workers, there at Bishop's invitation, sponsored by Cuba's pro-Bishop government.

Instead of referring to its own archives, where some of Reagan's Grenada deceptions were debunked years ago, the "paper of record" is adding new misinformation to its Grenada file.