reflexive secrecy

eric umansky on the recently-leaked photos of torture at abu ghraib:

"Who possibily could be surprised that the photos eventually leaked. The fact that the adminitration has tried to hold them back is yet another example of its winning strategy of Reflexive Secrecy. It's the double-whammy: Wrong on principle and wrong on efficacy. Cheney's little incident this weekend, the photos, tendency toward secrecy keeps boomeranging. It's not just an offensive anti-democratic habit, it's a dumb one."

this was my reaction, too, when i heard about the cheney-shooting thing. so stupid! why, dear god, why would you bother keeping that secret? because secret-keeping is what this administration does. and, as has been proven over and over again, they're very bad at it.


i've thought about linking to the abu ghraib pictures. maybe i should. but they are so disturbing, so infuriating, and so incredibly sad that i can't bear it.