The Jacksonian Tradition

Stephen Green has an excellent analysis of why most Americans aren't freaked out by Gitmo, and why that doesn't make us torture-loving psychopaths. In other words, Gitmo fits into Americans' traditional sense of fair-play:

While reading that last paragraph, maybe your mind wandered. Maybe your brain recoiled, and was haunted by questions. "Do we live perfectly by the Geneva Conventions?" "Don't our soldiers sometimes hide in civilian homes?" "Weren't we asking to be attacked?" "Didn't they attack us by the only means at their disposal?"

If you asked yourself those things, you're certainly no Jacksonian.

But millions of Americans - probably a wartime majority - do hold by Jackson's traditions. We try to play fair, and mostly we succeed. But we will not play fair with those who refuse to honor the rules of the game. In fact, we think it speaks pretty well of us that those Gitmo prisoners are being treated as well as they are.