Kelly Sadler Validated

Senator John McCain, recuperating from brain surgery at home in Arizona, issued an eloquent statement opposing the nomination of Gina Haspel to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Following that, Kelly Sadler brought upon herself a torrent of outrage when in a cabinet meeting she  quipped "it doesn't matter. He's dying anyway." This included demands that she resign or be fired including from Meghan McCain, who stated "I don't understand what kind of environment you're working in when that would be acceptable and then you can come to work the next day and still have a job and that's all I have to say about it."

The Atlantic's David Frum, accomplished author and even more accomplished Twitter, responded in general:

On what basis does a president who mocked tortured POWs, mocked the mothers of slain soldiers, and mocked reporters living with disabilities fire an aide for mocking terminal cancer?

— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 11, 2018

That was the major reason Sadler wasn't fired. On Thursday afternoon we found out the other reason as

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Gina Haspel as the next CIA director despite opposition from most Democrats and a handful of Republicans who blasted her role in the agency’s enhanced interrogation program.

Lawmakers confirmed her in a 54-45 vote. Six Democrats voted in favor of Haspel including several who face tough re-election races in November: Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bill Nelson of Florida. The other two were Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Two Republicans voted against Haspel — Jeff Flake of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky.





This is part of the environment in which it is unnecessary to fire a Kelly Sadler. It is working for a president who mocked tortured POW's, mocked the mothers of slain soldiers, and mocked reporters living with disabilities. It's an environment in which despite hand-wringing from GOP colleagues of Senator McCain, 48 of 50 Republican senators present voted in favor of Gina Haspel.

Kentucky's Rand Paul had announced his opposition to the nominee prior to Sadler's controversial remark. Only one US Senator- Arizona's other, Jeff Flake- may have been sufficiently repulsed as to turn his "yes" into a "no." And this was Jeff Flake, who probably would have cast his vote in favor of Haspel had it been needed.

Ultimately, it is an environment in which a member of the Administration can say "it doesn't matter, he's dying anyway"....  and exactly one week later be proven completely correct.



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Shiny Object Syndrome

"Given thisWhite House's trail of disrespect toward John and others," Joe Biden wrote in part, "this staffer is not the exception to the rule; she is the epitome of it."

Biden recognizes a "trail of disrespect." Candidate Trump not only ridiculed Lieutenant John McCain's sacrifice- "I prefer people who aren't captured"-  but also Senator McCain, as when he tweeted  "one of the reasons I am no fan of John McCain is that our Vets are being treated so badly by him and the politicians. I will fix VA quickly."





But Kelly Sadler is not the epitome, which is "a typical or ideal example."

Sadler was insensitive toward a dying man, Senator John McCain, at home in Arizona (hopefully) recuperating from brain surgery.  However, it is more helpfully described as a variant of a Gaffe According to (Michael) Kinsley, after the journalist who once famously explained "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth...."

The aide in the White House communications department is not technically a politician, and "it doesn't matter- he's going to die, anyway" may turn out to be less than prescient. Yet, that would not be because of the critical "it doesn't matter" but because McCain may not be on his deathbed.  However, he recently prepared a recording in which he conceded "I don't know how much longer I'll be here. Maybe I'll have another five years (or) maybe I'll be gone before you hear this (but) I'm prepared for either contingency, or at least I'm getting prepared."

Before Sadler's controversial remark, McCain's son-in-law, Meghan McCain's husband Ben Domenech, had commented "We just appreciate the fact we've had such a good time to be able to spend with him in this moment." He was preparing for the worst.

Righteous indignation does, however, enable the media to ignore the statement's more important portion: "it doesn't matter."

In the explosion of righteousness the past few days, there has been no one (or nearly so) evaluating whether "it doesn't matter" is accurate. Consequently, the media has been able to avoid considering whether Senator McCain's eloquent criticism of the President's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, is likely to have any effect.

We won't know for sure until the final vote is taken in the US Senate and in the unlikely event the nomination is scuttled, at least one Senator states that McCain's opposition was pivotal.  Thus far, though, there is one individual at most who would not have done so without McCain's criticism of Haspel.

The nomination then would be approved, thus placing the imprimatur, against the wishes of a dying man, of the US government upon torture through its endorsement by one of the two major political parties (Rand Paul notwithstanding) That would be difficult for the centrist media because it would undermine its bothsiderism argument, in which Democrats are imagined to be as bad as Republicans.

So Kelly Sadler's remark is no "epitome." Cracks Trump has made about John McCain are more offensive and the one he used to wrap himself around veterans is specifically, brazenly, disingenous. "One of the reasons I am no fan of John McCain is that our Vets are being treated so badly by him and the politicians" suggests inaccurately that the Senator has badly  treated "our Vets." Further, "I will fix the VA" normally does not mean "I will set up the Veterans Administration chief, fire him, and replace him with an alleged drug pusher who will privatize the department for me."

Kelly Sadler made a rude and crude remark. But the boss and his minions in the United States Senate are probably upon the verge of de facto approval of torture, illegal under USA and international law. That would be much worse.



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Too Many Questions

Following the testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee of President Trump's nominee as CIA firector, Gina Haspel, the editorial board of The New York Times noted

In 2002, Ms. Haspel headed a C.I.A. detention facility in Thailand where a suspect linked to Al Qaeda, accused of orchestrating the attack on the American destroyer Cole off the coast of Yemen,  was waterboarded and brutalized in other ways. And in 2005, under her boss’s direction, she drafted a cable ordering the agency to destroy more than 90 videotapes of its interrogation of that man.

Vietnam War torture victim and U.S. senator John McCain from his Arizona ranch issued a three-paragraph, ten-sentence statement concluding

I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense. However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying. I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination.

Despite McCain almost uniquely (and among his fellow Senators, uniquely) occupying the moral high ground on torture, his sentiments have not necessarily persuaded anyone, with the possible exception of his Arizona colleague, Jeff Flake.

That's hardly surprising, for each brings his or her own values, ideology, and impression of the nominee and her testimony into the mix.  When Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine asked her “If the CIA has a high-value terrorism suspect in its custody and the President gave you a direct order to waterboard that terrorist, what would you do?” Haspell replied “I do not believe the president would ask me to do that."

I take that to be a "yes."  If Haspell had maintained that she would refuse the order and resign, Democrats would be reassured and  Republicans, who would be know that Haspell would make way for a compliant director, would be satisfied.

In June 2016 Trump asked Himself at a rally in Ohio "what do you think of waterboarding,"  He responded "I like it a lot. I don’t think it’s tough enough."At a primary debate in New Hampshire four months earlier, he had declared "I would bring back waterboarding. And I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."   If Haspell believes that's far-fetched, she hasn't thought through that possiblility. Alternatively, she is the yes-man/woman she was when she did as she was told by her superior in destroying the torture videotapes.





In a letter to Attorney General Sessions, six Democratic-aligned senators have requested declassification of the internal investigation into destruction of the videotapes by the C.I.A. "No senator can consider Ms. Haspel's nomination in good conscience without first reviewing this document," they recognize.

Additionally, much of the documentation pertaining to Ms. Haspel's record currently are confidential and should be, as the Times editorial asserted, declassified. That is not likely. Who determines whether it can be released? Acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel.








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Where's Hillary?

Ask not "Where's Waldo?" Ask "Where's Hillary?"

On April 27, Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future wrote

Will Hillary Clinton oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the fast track authority designed to ramrod it through the Congress? She’s been noncommittal to date, with many assuming she will eventually support the president who she served as secretary of state. But by calling out his opponents, President Obama has turned the escalating battle over fast track and TPP into an intra-party back-alley knife fight. As someone seeking to lead that party, Hillary can’t remain on the sidelines for long. And, if she adheres to the standards that she put forth for the agreement, she might well end up joining the opposition.

Eleven days later, Dave Johnson, also of the Campaign for America's Future, linked to Borosage's post and explained

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled the voting process for trade promotion authority, commonly known as “fast track,” to begin as early as Tuesday. If passed, fast track prohibits the Congress from amending trade agreements no matter what problems might show up, requires these agreements to be voted on within 90 days, limits the debate Congress is allowed and prohibits filibusters.

"Hillary can't remain on the sidelines for long," Borosage complained, but she has exceeded our expectations. Two days before the pivotal vote- on fast track- Mrs. Clinton (photo from Lucas Jackson/Reuters) is nowhere to be found.

She has done her best to avoid the issue. Asked in April about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Clinton cryptically remarked "Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security. We have to do our part in making sure we have the capabilities and the skills to be competitive." (This stands in contrast with candidates publicly opposed to jobs, prosperity, national security, and competitiveness.)

Cynically, the thought arises that Mrs. Clinton is playing a very cynical game. With Bernie Sanders raising enough money that he may get the media attention necessary to challenge the front runner on issues of economic justice, it's unlikely HRC eventually will come out in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  Yet, her silence is facilitating passage of fast track authority, which would make heading off approval of the TPP a truly formidable task.

Whatever she believes about the trade deal itself, Clinton likely wants the President of the United States to have the authority to present such agreements for up-or-down approval to the United States Congress.  She wants, and probably expects, to be the next President herself and is, in a way, in a similar situation to that of Barack Obama on torture in the Bush Administration.

Obama seems to have been always opposed to torture. But as President he not only has refused to prosecute members of the prior Administration for the regime illegal under both international and U.S. law. Further, as Jonathan Turley  pointed out in 2010,  the current Administration "worked hard behind the scenes not only to prevent any investigation of torture in the United States but shutdown efforts abroad to enforce the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. This includes threatening the Spanish that, if they did not derail a judicial investigation, it would have serious consequences in bilateral relations."

Of course it did. Protect the prior President, and future Presidents will protect you, or at least be stymied because there is little precedence in going after past occupants of the Oval Office.  If Barack Obama gets his way on bargaining away U.S. sovereignty to multinational corporations, it will set a precedent and make it easier for his successor to do the same without a whimper from the United States Congress.

So where is Hillary?  She is in hiding, where her interests lie.

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The Constitutional Right You Never Noticed

It was bad enough when President George W. Bush in October, 2001 declared "We cannot let the terrorists achieve the objective of frightening our nation to the point where we don't conduct business or people don't shop." Yes, that will show the terrorists: they won't even notice the body searches at airports, massive government spying on domestic and international communications, or a war that takes 3,000-4,000 young American lives. Only our Sears purchases.

Shopping. That must have been the eleventh amendment mysteriously missing from the U.S. Constitution. But so is going to the movie of our choice, for Newswer reports

After Sony's U-turn on releasing The Interview, the controversial movie played in 331 independent cinemas across America on Christmas Day, often to sellout crowds. Many moviegoers made it clear they were there to take a political stand, with one ticket seller in California dressed as "Uncle Sam-ty Claus," the New York Times reports. "We are taking a stand for freedom," the manager of the Cinema Village East in Manhattan tells the AP. "We want to show the world that Americans will not be told what we can or cannot watch. Personally, I am not afraid." 

We may not demand improved police-community relations so that lives are not needlessly taken, appropriations for weapons systems even the Pentagon doesn't want,  nor increased wages commensurate as productivity climbs, but we must be allowed to watch a comedy about assassinating a foreign leader. Freedom, apparently.

Also, awesomeness.  After release of the Senate intelligence committee on torture, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros on a panel  (video, below; cartoon with John Brennan, Dick Cheney,Michael Hayden, and Tanataros at bottom, from Matt Bors) ranted

And look, I agree with you. The United States of America is awesome. But we've had this discussion. We've closed the book on it and we've stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This Administration wants this discussion to show how we're not awesome.








That was awesome. However,although movie fans in 331 theaters were given the opportunity to pay to see a movie on Christmas, earlier this year the Justice Integrity Project noted

The United States experienced a major decline in press freedom over the past year according to the new annual study announced Feb. 11 by Reporters Without Borders. The world's largest press freedom group announced also sharp declines in the rank of the Central African Republic and Guatemala, and "marked improvements" for Ecuador, Bolivia and South Africa.

In America's largest city, reporters get roughed up by guys in uniform for photographing arrests. Ghana, South Africa, and Uruguay allow the press more freedom than does the U.S. government. But we get to watch movies. Awesome.

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"I Understand"

There were many ludicrous assertions made on Sunday's Meet The Press by Dick Cheney. For Politifact, it was the assertion, which it rated "false," by the former President (video below)- uh, er, Vice President

We got to the point where we were very concerned about the possible linkage between terrorists on the one hand and weapons of mass destruction on the other.  Saddam Hussein had previously had twice nuclear programs going. He produced and used weapons of mass destruction. And he had a 10-year relationship with al-Qaida.








Taking a global view, Digby is outraged the former Vice-President stated

I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective. And our objective is to get the guys who did 9/11 and it is to avoid another attack against the United States. I was prepared and we did. We got authorizing from the president and authorization from the Justice Department to go forward with the program. It worked. It worked now for 13 years.

We’ve avoided another mass casualty attack against the United States. And we did capture Bin Laden. We did capture an awful lot of the senior guys at Al Qaeda who were responsible for that attack on 9/11. I’d do it again in a minute.

"Basically," she observes,"he put the whole world on notice that the world’s only superpower would use any means it chooses without limit or restriction to obtain its objectives."

That is a problem, a major one. But a major electoral problem is highlighted by this exchange occurring a few moments later:



CHUCK TODD:

When you say waterboarding is not torture, then why did we prosecute Japanese soldiers in World War II for waterboarding?

(OVERTALK)

DICK CHENEY:

For a lot of stuff. Not for waterboarding. They did an awful lot of other stuff to draw some kind of moral equivalent between waterboarding judged by our Justice Department not to be torture and what the Japanese did with the Bataan Death March and the slaughter of thousands of Americans, with the rape of Nanking and all of the other crimes they committed, that's an outrage. It's a really cheap shot, Chuck, to even try to draw a parallel between the Japanese who were prosecuted for war crimes after World War II and what we did with waterboarding three individuals--



Todd was not drawing a parallel between "what the Japanese did with the Bataan Death March and the slaughter of thousands of Americans." In one case, the armed forces of a nation (Japan) brutalized American and Filipino prisoners of war, and also practiced waterboarding. In the other, terrorists committed a monumental act of murder (primarily in NYC); in response (allegedly, anyway), they (and others) were waterboarded.

Far from comparing (WWII) Japanese brutality with (anti-terrorist) American brutality, Todd was asking Cheney to consider USA prosecution of Japanese for committing torture in light of torture committed by the USA in the last decade.    As Dick probably realizes, his is not a tortured analogy (pun intended); it is a completely wrongheaded analogy.

Recognizing that saying "what we did with three of the individuals we waterboarded" would be giving away the store, Cheney substituted "what we did with waterboarding three individuals...." Except that, as McClatchy reports

evidence cited in a Senate report released this week that suggests waterboarding was more widespread than the CIA has admitted.

CIA officials have acknowledged using waterboarding on three people: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who allegedly masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; a senior al Qaida operative from Saudi Arabia named Zayn al Abidin Muhammed Hussein – also known as Abu Zubaydah; and Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, who was accused of planning the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

The Senate report describes a “water dousing” technique tantamount to waterboarding allegedly being used in Afghanistan on at least five other CIA detainees, identified as Mustafa al Hawsawi, Abu Hazim, Mohammad Shoroeiya, Abu Hudhaifa and Majid Khan.

But Cheney's response itself wasn't the most disturbing aspect of the transaction, nor that with the greatest implication.  Rather, it was how the journalist responded when Cheney made a remarkably false analogy and charged Todd with taking "a really cheap shot."

While opinions may vary, most individuals would find being accused of taking a cheap shot (a really cheap shot) an insult.

Not our Meet The Press host, though. Confronted by a nasty charge, Todd responded "I understand." Not "I understand, but" or "I understand why you're so sensitive to this," nor "I understand but what you're saying is literally incredible," but "I understand."  Confronted by Cheney,Todd folded like a cheap suit- or, rather, like Joe Lieberman at a debate. ("Lieberman: "... I'm pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers that you're better off than you were eight years ago." Cheney: "I can tell you, Joe,the government had absolutely nothing to do with it."  No mention of Halliburton's lucrative contracts with said government).

This is a problem for Democrats that goes far beyond torture.  Republicans typically- Cheney and Newt Gingrich especially- have developed over the years a penchant for attacking the media generally and their inquisitors specifically. It is part of the reason many Americans have grown to accept the myth of the "liberal media." That in turn causes these voters to view something positive reported about liberals/Democrats skeptically and to accept uncritically anything positive reported about conservatives/Republicans.

This is not a winning proposition for Democrats. While they act as if journalists are their friends, Repubs frequently confront them- and, as the Cheney /Todd instance demonstrates- gain an advantage.  The American people have a great distrust for "the media," with which liberals appear to be allies. Together, they come to be viewed as an establishment which represents only itself and sometimes looks down on ordinary people.

John McCain once viewed the media as "my base."  And when a supporter of his at a town hall meeting during campaign 2000 accused Barack Obama of being an Arab (video below), McCain courageously corrected her, stating "no, ma'am, he's a decent family man, a citizen."  The media, understandably, swooned. Later, McCain lost the election, decisively. Take heed.











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She Knows Asinine

Nicole Wallace was press secretary for Governor Jeb Bush and White House communications director for GW Bush. She appeared Tuesday on Morning Joe video, below) and Salon's Elias Isquith notes

while gabbing with her buddies on MSNBC: “”In the history of this country, I think months after 9/11, there were three people who we thought knew about imminent attacks and we did whatever we had to do.” Having misled viewers into thinking a huge, secret and continent-spanning torture regime was actually just focused on merely three suspected terrorists (no biggie; what’s a little waterboarding between friends?), Wallace added, solemnly, “I pray to god that until the end of time, we do whatever we have to do to find out what’s happening.”

According to the Huffington Post, the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, an Executive Summary of which was released Tuesday

.... tears apart the CIA's past claims that only a small number of detainees were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques. The agency has said it held fewer than 100 detainees and subjected fewer than one-third of those to controversial tactics such as waterboarding. But Senate investigators found that the CIA had actually kept 119 detainees in custody, 26 of whom were illegally held. 

We must "do whatever we have to do to find out what's happening, says an incoherent Wallace. A few moments later, she would reverse field, adding "What else did we do to make sure that 3,0000 people weren't blown out, obliterated on a New York  City morning. I don't care what we did."  Upon reflection, that seems an odd statement for an individual who loyally served the president who told a CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass, now" five weeks before terrorists murdered those 3,000 Americans. She would know, we're to believe.

Isquith noted Wallace contended

solemnly, “I pray to god that until the end of time, we do whatever we have to do to find out what’s happening.” It was “asinine” and “dangerous” to claim that systematic torture “makes America less great,” the person who’d just implied god supports torture said. All that matters, Wallace argued, is whether torture “help[s] us kill people who want to kill us.”  But liberals, she complained, want to focus on “political correctness” — i.e., not committing war crimes.

Wallace claimed "the notion that what we do affects terrorists is a lie. It's a lie perpetrated by political correctness and liberals, and it's dangerous." But whether she meant "the politically correct and liberals," or that liberals and the "politically correct" are mutually exclusive, or that (in Isquith's words) she was "mistaking cultural shibboleths and talking points for an actual English sentence " cannot be determined with certainty.

A few hours after Wallace implied that torture "help(s) us kill people who want to kill us," a politically correct liberal from the great southwest would remark on the Senate floor

I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored.

Given how much the Republican Party has descended into the rathole of deceit, dishonesty, and deception the past third of a century, his was even more courageous than it seems (though it's a little hard to accuse John McCain of treason, anyway).  It's even more courageous than the statement given, shortly after approving the  Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, by another politically correct liberal who explained

Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

As a former presidential spokesperson, Wallace knows how to spin incoherence, God, and patriotism into one confusing, yet highly effective, bundle. The notion that somehow this makes America less great is dangerous and asinine," she claims.  Asinine and dangerous, from a person who knows about that close-up from working directly for one disreputable, and one failed, two failed Bushes.



















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Torture Today, Torture Tomorrow, Torture Forever!

The Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday released its report on the CIA excluding the who, when and where of its topic.  After negotiations between administration officials (at times including the President) and committee chairperson Diane Feinstein of California (AP photo, below), according to Politico's Josh Gerstein 

The 528-page summary had 7 percent of its words blacked out, obscuring the titles of CIA staffers and dates of critical events. On top of that, there are code names for so-called black sites and pseudonyms for two key CIA contractors who carried out the bulk of the harshest interrogations.

Sometimes the public version of the report piles opacity on opacity, deleting codes already intended to obscure basic information. The original Senate report used letters to represent the foreign countries involved, but the CIA and the White House insisted that even those letters be blacked out before the review was made public....

Blacking out most CIA officers’ names rather than providing pseudonyms made it almost impossible to track what knowledge they had from emails, memos or experience with other interrogations.

While some officials are named because they were already known publicly, one US intelligence official said "there are other CIA officers whose identities are not revealed because there is a reasonable possibility that these officers would be subject to threats and possible violence if their identities were revealed."   The worse the transgressions, the more involved in torture the individual, the less likely his/her name is revealed and the more likely it will remain a secret to the American people. That's a sweet deal for the most egregious torturers, who are violating an international treaty and by U.S. law are subject to twenty years in prison. Or death.

During what Politico's Jennifer Epstein wrote was "a call with reporters," on Tuesday "a senior administration official" stated

I think that there is value in transparency in the sense that by being transparent and by providing this information to the public, it adds another strong piece of evidence as to why we should not do these things as a country,The release … I think helps cement the notion that we should not do these things because in a democracy the American people can take a hard look at this information themselves and I think generally speaking the American people reject the notion that we have to utilize these types of brutal tactics in service of our own security.

President Obama believes we are a nation of laws, as long as they're not enforced. In a statement, he maintained "I hope that today's report can help us leave these techniques where they belong- in the past."

Oh sure, it won't happen again.  In related news: Martians will be performing next Thursday in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza for the first of three planned concerts for the "Today Show."  Joining them will be Kenny Chesney and Beyonce for an eclectic group of stars sure to satisfy the entire family.

Discussing on "Meet The Press" domestic CIA activities in the 1970s, the late Senator Frank Church (D-ID) at the time said

I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.

The abyss was crossed. It has been again. And it will again. Thank you for the hope and change, President Obama.

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Someone Is The Mark Here, And It's Not John Brennan.

Recounting a conversation in 2001, an author in The New York Times  recalled

 'I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it and this movie is not pornography'?''

''Of course,'' I answered. ''That is Justice Potter Stewart, although I don't remember the case.''

The case was Jacobellis v. Ohio and it was 1964 when Justice Stewart uttered "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . “

Still, for the benefit of Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-TX), we will define "torture" as the UN Convention Against Torture in 1984 defined it, as

...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

In 2008, right-wing shock-jock Mancow Muller denied waterboarding is torture and then was instantly converted after he underwent the "enhanced interrogation" technique, in his case reportedly lasting six seconds.The late Christopher Hitchens, waterboarded in 2008, admitted "I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted"  (video below from Vanity Fair).  In 2009, Sean Hannity vowed to undergo waterboarding to prove it wasn't torture but when challenged by Keith Olbermann and Jesse Ventura, opted out.







Yet, Politico reports, "The term torture is being used by the critics of the program. I think that term is going to be disputed," Chambliss said, adding that waterboarding was investigated by the Justice Department and "is not torture."

"Critics of the program"is  the term of art, as Marcy Wheeler points out, by journalists afraid to acknowledge the term "torture" except in quotes, suggesting there is doubt where there is none. Once it was found to have authorized waterboarding, the Bush 43 Justice Department conducted what it sold as an investigation, wisely concluding torture was not torture, which is strictly prohibited by the (UN) Torture Convention, the Geneva Convention, and United States federal code.

Waterboarding, we read, generally" involves choking the victim by filling their throat with a steady stream of water — a sort of "slow-motion drowning" that was perfected by Dutch traders in the 17th century. They used it against their British rivals in the East Indies." It was torture when the USA prosecuted Japanese for imposing it upon American soldiers in World War II, and when

used by the Japanese in World War II, by U.S. troops in the Philippines and by the French in Algeria. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rogue used waterboarding against its own people. The British used it against both Arabs and Jews in occupied Palestine in the 1930s. In the 1970s, it was widely used in Latin America, particularly under the military dictatorships in Chile and Argentina (where it was known as "Asian torture.")

But the Texas Senator may have been at his most ridiculous when

"I think John has done a really good job," Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

When Brennan initially denied the agency was snooping on Senate computers and first briefed the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the issue, "he didn't have all the facts," Chambliss said. Five CIA employees involved in the operation should be fired, he added.

"Once he got all the facts, he came back and he did apologize. He was wrong. Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein was right," Chambliss said. "If I thought John Brennan knew about this then ... certainly we'd be calling for his resignation. ... But I will tell you that these five staffers that did this — if they worked for me, they'd be gone now. But the accountability board has been convened, and they will be looking into this, and they will be dealt with accordingly."

Let's see if we understand this. In March, C.I.A. Director Brennan had claimed

As far as the allegations of, you know, the CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s—that’s—that’s just beyond the—you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do. ... When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.

Now that it has turned out CIA staff members did spy on members of the Senate and their staffs, Senator Chambliss says he would fire the employees, were they only his to fire. Brennan has fired no one and the Senator says "I think John has done a really good job."  Either Chambliss is proud Brennan is a lousy administrator or he 's pulling our collective legs, playing the tough guy when he says "if they worked for me, they'd be gone now."  More likely, if they worked for Chambliss and were not discovered, he would promote them.

One definition has "fool" as "a person who behaves in a silly way, or someone who lacks judgment:"  John Brennan already has told Chambliss and Feinstein something they interpret as an "apology" and apparently has survived being demonstrably incompetent or dishonest.   That leaves the likes of Chambliss- and us the public, and if we let the CIA Director and the Enabler In Chief get away with this, we're the ones wearing dunce caps.









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Such A Vicious Man. Probably A Traitor.

Slate's Dave Weigel recognizes Americans viewing the border crisis blame Barack Obama simply because he is the President. Mother Jones' Kevin Drum concludes

Republicans can basically do anything they want and never get blamed for it. Most voters don't even know who's in control of Congress anyway. When something goes wrong, all they know is (a) something went wrong, and (b) Barack Obama is the president and he should have done something about it.

This in turn prompts David Atkins to remark

There has to be an acknowledgment from the Executive Branch that Republicans in Congress are saboteurs, not legislators. Presidents tend to be reluctant to acknowledge the boundaries of their power so that the public doesn't perceive them as weak. But that ship has sailed. The government's clear inability to accomplish almost anything has already made that case. All that's left is to adjudicate the blame.

There's no reason not to simply come forward with a popular progressive legislative wish list, hold symbolic votes in the Senate, do whatever is possible via Executive Order, watch the lawsuits and impeachment threats roll in, and remind the American public every day through Election Day how Republicans are sabotaging the country.

Now more than ever, the country needs a fighter in the Oval Office--not a conciliator.

A conciliator is fine if there is someone to be conciliatory with.   At a news conference Friday, President Obama conceded

I understand why it happened.  I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this.  And it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had.  And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots. 

But having said all that, we did some things that were wrong.  And that's what that report reflects. And that's the reason why, after I took office, one of the first things I did was to ban some of the extraordinary interrogation techniques that are the subject of that report.

I understand; some things were wrong; we mustn't retroactively feel too sanctimonious. It was Barack Obama at his patronizing best, but never mind. In essence, the torturers were (and are) patriots, the President maintains and, as Digby comments

is there any doubt after all this that any president, including Obama himself, will approve the use of torture if the CIA says it needs to use it in the future? Let's say when there is "enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this" and everybody is afraid? I didn't think so. 

But the President's statement wasn't good enough for most Repubs. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported

.... the president's remarks acknowledging the milieu in which the CIA program was launched, when officials expected another attack could come at any time, were well-received by some former CIA officials.

"Sure, he called what we did 'torture,' but that's what he's been saying going back to his first campaign, so no surprise there," said former acting general counsel John Rizzo. "But I give him tremendous credit for noting that the folks, like me, who conceived and implemented the program were under tremendous pressure to protect the homeland in a time of national crisis. He even used the word 'patriots' to describe us."

Nonetheless, the newspaper (1980s-era term) noted "Mr. Obama's comments Friday are likely to draw new criticism from some Republicans, including former members and defenders of the Bush administration."

Of course they are.  And leading the pack is Liz Cheney (video below, with the perpetually unreasonable Monica Crowley), the straight daughter of Liz and Dick, who responded

You’ve got crises erupting around the world and he’s expending [...] more aggressive activity in targeting and going after patriots, heroes, CIA officers and others who kept us safe after 9/11.  He’s lying about what they did, he’s slandering them. He went to Cairo and did it in 2009. Today, he did it from the podium of the Oval Office. It’s a disgrace. It’s despicable.

President Obama viciously goes after lawbreakers, even smearing them as "real patriots." Whatever Obama's motivation- and Conor Friedersdorf senses a dark motive where there probably is a dark motive- the reaction to the President's remarks demonstrates that there is no satisfying some people, and those people are Republicans.








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Brennan's Tortured Testimony


Are you smarter than a fifth grader?  If you're reading this, you've probably already have proven among the most intelligent and insightful American citizens.  No doubt you are smarter than a fifth grader.  Regrettably, John Brennan is not.

Oh, of course, he is smarter than grade school children, only he wishes to pretend otherwise.  And so it was when the Senate Intelligence Committee conducted its hearing into the nomination by President Obama of John Brennan to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  As posted by The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel, a portion of the exchange between Brennan and Michigan Senator Carl Levin went as follows:

LEVIN: Well, you've read opinions as to whether or not waterboarding is torture. And I'm just asking, do you accept those opinions of the attorney general? That's my question.

BRENNAN: Senator, I've read a lot of legal opinions. I read an Office of Legal Counsel opinion from the previous administration that said waterboarding could be used. So from the standpoint of that, I can't point to a single legal document on the issue. But as far as I'm concerned, waterboarding is something that never should have been employed, and as far as I'm concerned, never will be if I have anything to do with it.

LEVIN: Is waterboarding banned by the Geneva Conventions?

BRENNAN: I believe the attorney general also has said it's contrary and in contravention of the Geneva Convention. Again, I'm not a lawyer or a legal scholar to make the determination as to what's in violation of an international convention.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. telephone survey taken in November 2007 did not include the question as to whether waterboarding is banned by the Geneva Conventions.   But it did ask whether waterboarding is torture and 69% of respondents believed it is.  With 29% replying in the negative, fully 98% of respondents had an opinion to a question which Brennan, who claimed "I can't point to a single legal document on the issue,"  could not answer.  Further, a clear majority of individuals surveyed expressed opposition to the use of waterboarding against terrorists. (Brennan did maintain that the tactic will never be "employed, and as far as I'm concerned, never will be if I have anything to do with it,"  a restriction easily surmounted with plausible deniability.)

The website howstuffworks.com recognizes

Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.

The U.S. Code defines torture, which it specifies as a "war crime," as

The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

The late Christopher Hitchens, after voluntarily submitting to waterboarding, concluded "Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."   According to the U.S. Code, the latter is

The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Ratified in 1949, the Fourth Geneva Convention defined torture and explicitly outlawed it.  The United Nations Convention Against Torture was adopted in December of 1984, went into effect in  June of 1987, and was ratified by the USA in October of 1994.   It defines torture in a manner very similar to that of the U.S. Code and explicitly prohibits it.  It is very simple and doesn't require "a lawyer or a legal scholar to make the determination."  Even a fifth grader can understand that.

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Obama Does It Again


Oops. P.J. Crowley went a little too far.

The State Department spokesman has stepped down after he labeled as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid" the treatment in solitary confinement of Army Pfc. Bradley, who is suspected of imparting classified information to Wikileaks. He might have been spared the misfortune of being asked to resign if he had served under the same man who, as a presidential candidate criticizing the Bush administration's use of phone companies to help conduct its spying operations, had declared

We only know these crimes took place because insiders blew the whistle at great personal risk ... Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal.

Unfortunately for Crowley, the President is one Barack Obama, hardly the same guy who in 2008 valued the support of individuals concerned about civil liberties. The fellow who is President, responding to a question from ABC's Jake Tapper about Manning, replied

With respect -- with respect to Private Manning, you know, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well.

One of those dedicated to civil liberties is the lawyer and blogger Glenn Greenwald, who writes often, and impressively about the subject (less often, fortunately, about foreign policy). Greenwald notes

The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects: it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks. Other than Obama's tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly "commands," it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President's obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.

Greenwald notes criticism of the President's Manning/Crowley policy from some of Obama's traditional supporters, such as Matt Yglesias, Andrew Sullivan Ezra Klein, Will Bunch, Daniel Ellsberg, and (UCLA professor) Mark Kleiman. Observing support from the far right (which cheered Bush 43 as he shred the U.S. Constitution in the name of counter-terrorism), Greenwald remarks "the news isn't all bad."

But in the world of Barack Obama and Emanuel/Daley, public outrage from supporters of the President is not a bug, it's a benefit. They believe, as does William Galston, that the road to re-election is through Independents and moving to the right, notwithstanding public support (as the chart from monkeycage.org indicates) for maintaining levels of Social Security and Medicare and most forms of spending, even at the risk, in most cases, of increasing the deficit.




















Galston, Matthews, and others who recommend the President move toward the center (presumably from the left) argue it less on policy, than on political, grounds. Obama needs these fellows- not for their advice but to encourage the belief among liberals that the President panders to the Washington insiders and moderates strictly to be re-elected. It fosters the hope that if and when re-elected, President Obama will revert to the ideological stance of State Senator and U.S. Senator Barack Obama. Nevertheless, some observers understand, as does Will Bunch, who comments

I'm 52 years old, and I'm constantly amazed at how much about human nature I still don't really get. What exactly goes on in Obama's mind? He's a smart and supposedly idealistic guy who came of age during the Reagan years, who surely -- those first times he dared to dream about the Oval Office -- saw himself taking all the obvious hypocrisy. Instead, he is taking presidential hypocrisy to new levels. What switch got turned off, or on, that stops him from ordering a halt to the mistreatment of Bradley Manning?

How does Barack Obama look in the mirror some mornings?

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Not In Reagan's Footsteps

Sean Hannity responded to President Obama's speech at the U.S. Military Academy on December 1 by saying

I didn't hear Winston Churchill, I didn't hear Ronald Reagan, I didn't hear George Bush.

It's unfair to compare Barack Obama, at least at this point, to a recognized giant like Winston Churchill; and unfair to Barack Obama to compare him to George Bush, a recognized failure whom even Republicans now scurry to pretend was not even a conservative.

And according to this report from the San Francisco Chronicle, President Obama isn't even like President Reagan:

The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.

Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose "the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military's detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict," Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

When in May, 1988 President Reagan submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification the Convention Against Torture, he commented

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today....

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

The Convention, actively supported by President Reagan and signed during his administration, includes in Articles 2 and 4:

Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.
Officially, the decision to give a pass to the legal brains behind the Bush torture program was made by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. Still, ultimate responsibility for the failure to investigate warrantless surveillance, coercive interrogation techniques, and the politicization of the hirings and firings of prosecutors rests with a president who, at least on torture, apparently finds Ronald Reagan unacceptably progressive.

Torture Thrown Into Doubt, Again

Torture is illegal under international law and United States law; generally no more effective than conventional interrrogation techniques; a swell recruiting tool for Al Qaeda; and encourages subjects to lie. But at least sometimes the subject decides to spill the beans.

But wait. He may think he's giving out correct information but may be deluding himself. In newsweek.com, Sharon Begley summarizes a paper entitled "Torturing The Brain" written by neurobiologist Shane O'Mara of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Dublin and appearing in the journal Trends in Cognitive Science. Here, she quotes O'Mara and explains:

"information presented by the captor to elicit responses during interrogation may inadvertently become part of the suspect's memory, especially since suspects are under extreme stress and are required to tell and retell the same events which may have happened over a period of years." As a result, information produced by the suspect may parrot or embellish suggestions from the interrogators rather than revealing something both truthful and unknown to the interrogators. Second, cortisol-induced damage to the prefrontal cortex can cause confabulation, or false memories. Because a person being tortured loses the ability to distinguish between true and false memories, as a 2008 study showed, further pain and stress does not cause him to tell the truth, but to retreat further into a fog where he cannot tell true from false.

O'Mara concludes

the use of such techniques appears motivated by a folk psychology that is demonstrably incorrect. Solid scientific evidence on how repeated and extreme stress and pain affect memory and executive functions (such as planning or forming intentions) suggests these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or 'enhanced' interrogation.

Torture is necessary in the rare "ticking time bomb" scenario. But it is illegal, usually unnecessary, frequently counter-productive, and a gift to jihadists. Otherwise, it is a fine idea.

And While We're At It, How About That Anne Frank?

Here it was Monday, August 31, 2009 and an argument between two United States Representatives, Duncan Hunter (R.-Ca.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.) took place on MSNBC's Hardball regarding torture. Suddenly, the exchange took a suspicious turn:

HUNTER: OK. Let me talk.

Debbie, what you should really concentrate on is the fact that the Israelis use a much more stringent method of interrogation. I look forward to you asking for the Israeli prime minister to step down, because they do it. Do you think they should stop doing it to protect the country?

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: This is America. The last time I checked, this is the United States of America.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: So, you‘re not going to ask the Israeli leadership to step down?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Mr. Hunter, that is kind of ridiculous, the comparison.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: That‘s not ridiculous.

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We‘re—we‘re talking about practices in the United States.

And the United States doesn‘t torture. No one is above the law, including Dick Cheney...

(CROSSTALK)

Two questions pop into one's mind, although apparently not into Chris Matthews' mind:

1) What does Israel (which hadn't been mentioned in the discussion) have to do with the charge that the U.S.A. tortures detainees?

2) Would Hunter have made the reference had he not been tussling with a woman named Wasserman Schultz?

Answers: 1) nothing; 2) We'll never know. But it would have been nice had Chris Matthews asked Representative Hunter what he was getting at.

Illegal, At Least

On ABC's This Week on Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked of his "roundtable" about "the information we gleaned from all this and whether it was worth the interrogations we conducted." Regular panelist George F. Will responded:

We ought to have a commission. Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post suggests this morning- Sarah Day O'Connor and David Souter- bring them down, set it up, and answer some factual questions. For example, Khalid Sheik Mohammed was reticent; he was waterboarded 183 times and became locquacious. Did it have something to do with that and was he useful? Because whether or not these techniques are immoral and how immoral they are surely depends on whether or not they worked.

This is quite a linguistic sleight of hand. If in fact morality is to be fused with effectiveness (as he argues in the last sentence), it cannot be detached from legality.

And no commission is needed to determine legality. It is prohibited by the Geneva Convention. The Army Field Manual. United States Code Title 18.2340A. The U.N. Convention Against Torture. Odd, isn't it, that Will would suggest a commission featuring two former Supreme Court Justices- not to determine legality, but morality and effectiveness of torture, which would seem outside of their area of expertise.

But Will is thoughtful and open-minded compared to one of the other panel members, Liz Cheney, who claimed "waterboarding isn't torture and we can go down that path." (See it at approximately 3:40 of the video from This Week.) She did not do so, presumably because she is probably aware it is torture, defined in the U.S. Criminal Code as

an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Cheney went on to contend that these extreme interrogation tactics were thoroughly effective. Here, Glenn Greenwald argues effectively that the Inspector General's report concludes no such thing.

But it shouldn't even get that far. The tactics are clearly torture and torture is clearly illegal by international law and U.S. law. And as Greenwald notes,

If we want to be a country that uses torture, then we should repeal our laws which criminalize it, withdraw from treaties which ban it, and announce to the world (not that they don't already know) that, as a country, we believe torture is justifiable and just. Let's at least be honest about what we are. Let's explicitly repudiate Ronald Reagan's affirmation that "[n]o exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture" and that "[e]ach State Party is required [] to prosecute torturers."

If the right took that position, it would at least be principled and honest. And they would be demonstrating a little courage, instead of cowardly hiding behind claims they know are completely without merit.

Torture Cheerleader

Rush Limbaugh is unhappy. He doesn't like Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to order a preliminary inquiry into possible abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency at its overseas prisons, and ranted on his program Tuesday:

Then you look at this interrogation stuff. We heard reports that interrogators threatened the detainees' families. The abuses by the interrogators reported in the press -- I think there's a little test we want to perform here -- what I think we have here is a staged mock shooting. You know, we had that in another room, and that was used to get the attention of a terrorist. We wanted to make the terrorist think we have shot one of your buddies in the other room, so we fire off a gun and nobody gets hurt. We had another terrorist threatened with a power drill and a gun, and we have heard about waterboarding and we're told this is dangerously damaging to a prisoner's psyche. In the meantime we're talking to people who killed 3,000 people in cold blood and vowed to do more and were treated as heroes, and we think we're gonna be upsetting their psychology by threatening them with a frigging power drill?

If this is true, I think they're pretty clever techniques. I think they're pretty clever techniques and they're not harmful.

These "clever techniques" which are "not harmful" contributed to the deaths of the approximately 100 detainees who died while in U.S. custody. Further, it's not clear who has told Limbaugh that waterboarding or other tactics "is dangerously damaging to a prisoner's psyche." Presumably, it's another means of suggesting that those who question anything the right approves of is somehow effeminate, maybe even "French." And we can assume that Rush is really not ignorant, but merely characteristically trying to deceive his audience, when he claims "we're talking to people who killed 3,000 people in cold blood," given that at least 28 Guantanamo Bay detainees were released by the Bush Administration after federal courts found there was insufficient reason for them to be held. And most of the 9/11 terrorists, responsible for murdering 3,000 people were killed (logic optional; hot blooded emotionalism standard).

It's unfortunate that Limbaugh believes- no, not believes, but strategically claims- that this limited inquiry (stopping short of an actual investigation) is "the most radical leftist agenda advanced by a radical leftist party in the course of my lifetime." Surely, Holder is right when he notes "as attorney general, my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law."

Just as clearly, the "advanced interrogation techniques" at issue appear to be illegal. The U.N. Convention Against Torture, codified in U.S. law, demands "each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law" and "each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature." No exceptions made for terrorists or actors in an undeclared law. And torture? According to U.S. criminal law, it's anything "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering... upon another person." No exceptions made for "pretty clever techniques." This pesky rule of law thing.

'Tis a pity, though. Rush won't inform his listeners that "the most radical leftist agenda advanced by a radical leftist party in the course" of his lifetime, mandated by our approval as a nation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, was inspired by the "leftist" President who signed the document. The year: 1988. The President: Ronald Wilson Reagan.

(Not Carmen) Miranda

Did you hear the one about Obama giving the Miranda warning to dangerous terrorists?

It all started with a report at the Los Angeles Times, used by The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes to write "the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee." This was followed by ABC's Jake Tapper, then by Rush Limbaugh on 6/11 noting "Stephen Hayes, at the Weekly Standard on his blog mentioned that terrorist detainees in Afghanistan are being read their Miranda rights. This signals a huge shift once again that fighting terrorism is a criminal enterprise."

It's not only more innocent, but more sensible when one goes back to the original story. Following the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, the role of the FBI in interviewing terrorism suspects was downgraded, while use of civilian contractors, skilled in coercing false information, expanded. No wonder, then, that reportedly more than 525 detainees were released from the prison camp at Guantanamo by the Bush Administration- and only three convicted. Sure, "it was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against Al Qaeda," as FBI agent Ali Soufa testified last month before Congress, but it had the advantage of reflecting conservative anti-government, pro-outsourcing dogma.

In January, the LA Times Josh Meyer writes, "Obama shut down the CIA's secret 'black site' prisons and forbade the use of coercive interrogation techniques." A greater role for the FBI (and the Justice Department) has been invoked, with use of its "model of "informed" interrogation -- knowing everything about a suspect to get them talking."

A Justice Department spokesman, suggesting that the policy excoriated by the right had been carried over from the Bush Administration, contended "While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees."

Better interrogations, more evidence, fewer terrorists released, and perhaps President Obama's pledge, "We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security," can be fulfilled. You would expect conservatives like Stephen Hayes and Rush Limbaugh to appreciate that. No, you wouldn't.