They yet might. It depends, in part, on our capacity for self-delusion. Who's the bad guy around here these days? Don Rumsfeld? Zacarias Moussaoui? The semi-comical aspect of the whole matter is that the ultimate head of the U.S. military effort in Iraq inspires more disdain than one of the conspirators who helped destroy 3,000 American lives.
Perhaps because we have higher expectations for presidents than for illiterate mass-murderers? Would that be it? Whatever the case, the moral discrepancy should be plain as day. Here, we put on defense counsel and earnest psychological witnesses to the supposedly disordered state of Moussaoui's mind and the awful upbringing he had -- abusive father and all that.
The Anglo-Saxon legal system accords to any foe the whole range of rights he would pitilessly destroy, given half a chance. It is a point eminently worth noticing. Except, it is harder to notice than you might suppose, given our present fascination with George Bush's "blunders" and "deceptions."
That public officials must be held to account seems obvious. That a great people seem more emotionally involved in incapacitating their own leaders than in identifying and punishing enemies is not a sign you would normally call cheerful. Except to the enemy, who must be atwitter over every indication of flagging American will in Iraq and elsewhere.
Please don't hurt me...I don't want to die. The voice of American victimhood? Or a road sign pointing to the moral recovery of a sorely conflicted people?
In due course, we'll surely see.