Where’s the Outrage?

In his Pulitzer Prize winning The Colonial Mind 1620-1800, published in 1928, Vernon Parrington writes an interpretation of the life and career of Massachusetts colonial Governor Samuel Sewall (1652-1730.)

In addition to being governor during the trials, Sewall was one of the three judges. 20 people were put to death as a result of the trials.

Here is information about the Salem Witch Trials.

In Parrington’s view, Sewall was a figure mostly resistant to change who in many ways was representative of a transition between an English and theocratic Massachusetts Bay Colony to the more open and democratic ways of the New England Yankee. It was this Yankee type that would play such a large role in the Revolution.

( Click here to get a more full account of what I’m saying in the above paragraph. )

A somewhat contrasting view of Sewall is offered in a new book about the governor called Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall. In this book, author Eve LaPlante seeks to show Sewall as man who spent much of his life after the Witch Trials trying to atone for his acts.

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Tags: Books, General, Religion by Texas Liberal
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The football gurus were hyping this game big time.  It is nice to see that 2 quality teams equals large viewing audience.

Tags: Sports by ecthompson
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The White House is either stupid or lying. Keith Olbermann points out that these are the only 2 options for anyone who has followed politics.

 

 Special Comment - NIE and the truth [8:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Countdown, National Intelligence Estimate by ecthompson
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OMG. I haven’t seen a White House press secretary have this much trouble since Scott McClellan. White House Press Secretary, Dana Perino was in hot water from the moment she began until the moment her press conference ended. This is much like the West Wing episode where CJ gets in hot water. Perino knew that today would be a bad day. There was so much contradictory information out there. Seymour Hersh has reported extensively on this subject. He has been proven right time and time again. He reported in November of last year that the intelligence community didn’t have the goods on Iran. Nothing that Ms. Perino said today illuminated Bush’s comments from the past 2 days.

BTW, I found this while searching the internet -

The Administration’s most persistent spin of the new Iran NIE is that it vindicates their position because it shows that Iran did in fact have an active nuclear weapons program in 2003. That’s quite some vindication.

What it really means is that faced with two neighbors in the spring of 2003 who both harbored nuclear ambitions, we invaded the country without an active WMD program while ignoring the one that did. I’m not suggesting we should have invaded Iran instead, but by the Administration’s own reckoning, we should have.

It puts an exclamation point on the colossal folly of our Iraq adventure.

 

 Tough questions on new NIE [6:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Countdown, Iran by ecthompson
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