chimes

“I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I’m still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior … A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

Andrew Sullivan wrote an open letter to former President Bush in the new issue of The Atlantic. This extract of a Reagan speech comes up towards the end and can stand on it’s own as a mea culpa that many of us could use.

Having spent my 20 years in the military, and being trained in survival and prisoner situations, the torture we blindly allowed to happen tore into me deeply. From day one there was no excuse, there’s no excuse now, there’s no excuse ever. That’s my piece.

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