As I was travelling and working all day yesterday and today without much time for email, I seem to have missed a whole lot of chatter about a piece in Salon in which I allegedly said some supposedly outrageous things about torture and free speech or some some such. To be honest, I haven’t read the piece yet. I postponed reading the email on the subject since I didn’t have time. I’ve got to file a column, but something tells me I was misrepresented now that I’ve gotten so much email like this:

he concedes that it fundamentally contradicts what the United States stands for, “what undermines what we stand for,” he says, “is the publication of all this information.” …
“I do think there’s a reason why the CIA does this stuff in secret, and why I think it should do a lot of things in secret. These things have a lot of propaganda value, both negative and positive, so I think we need to separate out what we think are ‘good policies’ from what the consequences are if those policies are publicized.”
Many progressives I know might, upon reading this gaudy putrescence, dream about chaining Mr. Goldberg to the floor in front of his computer for a 36-hour stretch, letting him squirm in his own feces and urine while listening to George Bush say “moooooolahs” and “nukular” repeatedly at 100 decibels. But none of my friends would turn their idle dreams of torture into reality no matter what the provocation, no matter how insidious the enemies of freedom like Mr. Goldberg become.
Likewise, civil discourse with these spouters must remain an unfulfilled dream. The men and women Goldberg has aligned himself with secretly outsource torture to Egypt and Pakistan and then wonder why so much of the world sneers when America publicly urges these nations to make progress toward democratic rule. Dissent they view as treason, so what can there possibly be to discuss? Maggots are unmoved by argument.

When I’m done with my other stuff, I’ll read the Salon piece and respond more, if warranted.