A Narrative of Scandal

In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Mark Danner proposes a 'narrative of scandal', i.e., a life cycle that American scandals since Watergate follow: revelation, investigation and expiation. In the current Iraq scandal, we can't seem to get beyond the revelation stage. We all know that this war has been marked by scandal; as the Downing Street memo shows, the scandal began even before the war began. It manifested itself with Abu Gharaib. And continues to this day with our sending detainees to other countries and having them do our dirty work.

There has yet to be an investigation, by the courts or Congress, to tell the story of what happened or an expiation where sentences are handed down and the bad guys punished, so that we can finally return to a state of grace.

We can't get to the investigatory phase because words no longer have meaning.