Bringing on the evil

James Carroll had an excellent take on Bush and evil, inspired by the incredible “bring ‘em on” quote. (Thanks for calling this to my attention, Mike. ) What I liked best about what Carroll has to say is this:

What the president may not know is that the worst manifestations of evil have been the blowback of efforts to be rid of it. If one can refer to the personification of evil, Satan's great trick consists in turning the fierce energy of such purification back upon itself. Across the distance of history, the most noble ambition has invariably led to the most ignoble deeds. This is because the certitude of nobility overrides the moral qualm that adheres to less transcendent enterprises. The record of this deadly paradox is written in the full range of literature, from Sophocles to Fyodor Dostoyevski to Ursula K. LeGuin, each of whom raises the perennial question: What is permitted to be done in the name of ''ridding the world of evil''?

And a little later he comes out swinging with both fists at what has to be the most morally bankrupt words out of a modern president’s mouth.

To address concerns about the savage violence engulfing ''postwar'' Iraq with a cocksure ''Bring `em on!'' as he did last week, is to display an absence of imagination shocking in a man of such authority. It showed a lack of capacity to identify either with enraged Iraqis who must rise to such a taunt or with young GIs who must now answer for it. Even in relationship to his own soldiers, there is nothing at the core of this man but visceral meanness.

To paraphrase Pogo’s famous statement of 30 years ago: “We have met the evil and it is us!”