I can forgive all who have wronged me, but will have fervently to pray that I may have grace to enable me to forget or forgive any enemy who has ever maligned that blessed one who is now safe from all suffering sorrow, whom they tried to put to shame for my sake!

And [they] named the city after the other old hero, hero Hinds' brother-in-arms on beaten British and Seminole fields and presently to be President - the old duellist, the brawling lean fierce mangy durable old lion who set the well-being of the Nation above the White House, and the health of his new political party above either, and above them all set, not his wife's honor, but the principle that honor must be defended whether it was or not since, defended, it was, whether or not; ...

I am determined to unmask [those who have] entered into the combination to slander and revile me; and I trust, in due time to effect it, and lay the perfidy, meaness, and wickedness, of Clay, naked before the american people. I have lately got an intimation of some of his secrete movements, which, if I can reach with possitive and responsible proof, I will wield to his political, and perhaps, his actual destruction [Jackson was a duellist], he is certainly the bases[t], meanest, scoundrel, that ever disgraced the image of his god - nothing too mean or low for him to condescend to, secretely to carry his cowardly and base purpose of slander into effect; even the aged and virtuous female, is not free from his secrete combination of base slander - but anough, you know me, I will curb my feelings until it becomes proper to act, when retributive Justice will vissit him and his pander heads.

Given literacy levels among the lowest in the United States, what this adds up to is a populist brand of political warfare that often descends to the level of professional wrestling. In a small, largely rural state with only one real city, it also makes for fantastic - and highly entertaining - gossip. Almost everybody, it seems, has a neighbor whose second cousin knows an old boy who worked on the governor's dentist's car, and he says ...

During the 1990 Arkansas gubernatorial primaries, for example, lurid tales of lust and fornication were widely circulated about three of the four serious candidates -both Republicans, and, of course, Governor Bill Clinton. Only Clinton's Democratic opponent, an earnest good-government type perceived to have no chance, escaped suspicion. There was talk of whores, drunken orgies at duck-hunting clubs, illegitimate children, hush money, even suicides. One Arkansas politician was rumored to have had carnal knowledge of a convicted murderess inside her jail cell. Interracial sex, of course, is a topic of perennial interest. Indeed, it takes some effort to think of an Arkansas politician of note about whom scurrilous rumors haven't circulated.

For most Arkansas voters, evaluating this avalanche of smut has always been simple: your candidate is innocent, his or her opponents are probably guilty. The fact that political fault lines here tend to coincide with religious differences - hard-shell denominations to the right, "mainstream" churches to the left - makes it easy to caricature one's enemies as pious hypocrites. Otherwise, it would be tempting to suspect that many Arkansans harbor the secret belief that any politician - or TV evangelist, for that matter - who didn't have some rooster in him couldn't be much of a man.

But who would have dreamed that this stuff could be exported?

Bush also knew about, and approved of, White House meetings in which his top cabinet members were briefed by the CIA on its plans to use specific "enhanced" interrogation techniques [torture] on various high-value detainees. The meetings were chaired by [Condi-Condi] Rice, who was then the National Security Adviser, in the Situation Room. The participants were the members of the Principals Committee, the five Bush cabinet members who handled national security matters: Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, CIA Director Tenet, and Attorney General Ashcroft. Knowing how the Agency had been blamed for ostensible "rogue" actions in the past, Tenet was eager to spread the political risk of undertaking "enhanced interrogations." However, some members of the group became irritated with Tenet's insistence upon airing the grim details. "The CIA already had legal clearance to do these things," a knowledgeable source said, "and so it was pointless for them to keep sharing the details. No one was going to question their decisions - they were the CIA - they knew more than anyone else about each case. It's not as if any of the principals were debating the policy - that was already set. They wanted to go to the limit that the law required. But Tenet would say, 'We're going to do this, this, and this.'" Ashcroft in particular took offense at discussing such distasteful matters inside the White House. "History will not judge us kindly," he reportedly warned. There is no indication, however, that any Bush cabinet members objected to the policy. Cheney was described as "totally pushing it," and Rice, during the early period when Zubayda was captured, was described by a knowledgeable source as "a total hard-ass." The source suggested, "She was probably reflecting what the President wanted." (my emphasis)