In Impromptus today, I talk about the International Committee of the Red Cross, Guantanamo Bay, the War on Terror (as it used to be known), and other such stuff. Over the weekend, I read an article by the great Claudia Rosett — an article from 2002. And part of it made me a little bit sad — because it showed how the general American attitude has changed over the last several years.

In the 2002 article, Claudia cited a joke — a joke made by Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live. He was talking about how the ICRC was fixated on the living conditions of our terror detainees. (These Genevans are not so fixated on other prisoners’ living conditions.) Fallon said, “They’re suicide bombers. They hate living conditions.” Do you think such a joke could be, would be, made today? Did we have a better understanding of the jihad then, or now?

In Impromptus, I relate a story told by Judge Mukasey, George W. Bush’s last attorney general. He was down at Guantanamo in February 2008. He looked at “high-value” detainees — the worst of the worst — on video monitors. He did not see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, however. (Remember that “KSM” is the guy who “masterminded” the 9/11 attacks, which killed 3,000 people. He’s also the beauty who beheaded the Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl. Etc.) KSM was not in his cell; he was off having his Red Cross visit.

Mukasey did see the exercise room adjacent to KSM’s cell, however. And he remarked something: KSM had the same elliptical machine that he, the attorney general, did, back in Washington — at his apartment building, the Lansburgh. Only there was this difference: Mukasey had to share that elliptical machine with the other residents of the building; there was a scramble in the morning to get to it. KSM had an elliptical machine all to himself.

As I say in my column, how much more tenderly do America’s critics expect us to treat these people? Are we to administer abdominal massages, the kind that recently made ex-vice-presidential news? (Wouldn’t the “world community” call that “torture”?)