KAREN GREENBERG

There is a metaphor for the current circumstances in which the United States finds itself. And that is this: when someone takes a photograph of you and you see it and say, “I don't like that photograph.” Then, six months later, you look at it and you say, “Oh, you know, I actually looked a little younger then. I looked much better than I do now!” That is how I would describe the sensibility of living in the U.S. right now. However unpleasant the picture looks to me in any given moment, subsequent facts turn out to be even less palatable, less something we want to associate with ourselves and our culture.

Every three or six months, if you stop and ask where we are, we know one thing – we're in a less good place. We are finding out more about the failures in Iraq, more about the widespread use of torture, more about the secrecy and deception on the home front. What we are left with is the question, “Wasn't it better back then, before we knew?” In terms of thinking about today, the real question in our minds ought to be, “What will it look like in a year?”