how is it that apparently reasonable people, confronted with a serious moral challenge, simply and entirely lose their own moral sense? bill kristol just makes himself into an idiot, this morning.

But, Obama added, “Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility” as we confront evil. Why? Because “a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.” After all, “just because we think our intentions are good doesn’t always mean that we’re going to be doing good.”

It’s nice to see a liberal aware of the limits of good intentions — indeed, that the road to hell is paved with them. But here as elsewhere, Obama stayed at a high level of abstraction. It would have been interesting if Warren had asked a follow-up question: Where in particular has the United States in recent years — at home or especially abroad — perpetrated evil in the name of confronting evil?

well, let's see: active torture programs, secret prisons, pervasive aconstitutional surveillance that choked even john ashcroft. we've engaged in the most profound violations of our own basic values in the history of our country. that is not to say, of course, that it's ok to blow people up etc.