The moral and legal morass the Bush administration has created for itself on waterboarding was on full display this week in a tangled web of tortured statements from the administration.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said waterboarding might be illegal under current law — the same week the White House admitted the United States had used the water torture technique on three al-Qaida suspects and left open the possibility that it would use waterboarding in the future.
Vice President Dick Cheney called the president’s authorization of torture “tough and courageous†and asked, “Would I support those same decisions again today? You’re damn right I would.â€
Meanwhile, the nation’s highest defender of the law, Attorney General Michael Mukasey (in photo), said he wouldn’t pursue a criminal investigation of past Justice Department-authorized torture “because that would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting someone who followed that advice.â€
In other words, any past criminal act by the executive branch is unpunishable as long as the president and Justice Department approved it.
The Bush administration has taken this country down a dark and dangerous path on torture.
Obviously, Barack Obama should be subject to scrutiny and criticism. That’s part of picking a president. But as the Clintons have found out, how to scrutinize and criticize him is tricky. And for an appealing reason unrelated to race. “I think we should never be derisive about somebody who has the ability to inspire,†Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said Tuesday on MSNBC, as noted by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. “You know, we’ve had some dark days in this democracy over the last seven years, and today the sun is out. It is shining brightly. I watch these kids, these old and young, these black and white, 20,000 of them, pour into our dome in St. Louis Saturday night, and they feel good about being an American right now. And I think that’s something that we have to capture.â€
Saturday’s Republican caucus got a whole lot less interesting with Mitt Romney’s decision to drop out of the presidential race. Conventional wisdom has been that Mike Huckabee’s continued presence in the GOP presidential race helped John McCain — that if Huckabee were out, Romney would have done better on Super Tuesday. But David Brooks of the New York Times notes that polling says the opposite. When asked their second choice, Huckabee supporters overwhelmingly pick McCain. Now that Romney is out, will most of his supporters in Kansas go for McCain (who is coming to Wichita today and is almost certain to be the nominee) or for Huckabee (who is also coming here today) or Ron Paul (who is airing campaign commercials here)?
No one would quarrel with the idea of honoring fallen Kansas veterans of the most recent wars by naming one or more roadways for them. But is this the best name — War on Terrorism Veterans Memorial Highway? A bill that passed the House last week on a 107-10 vote would so designate K-156 from Larned to Garden City. The signs would be funded by private donations. State Rep. Doug Gatewood, D-Columbus, had suggested singling out a specific conflict, with a name such as the Operation Enduring Freedom Veterans Highway.
Many questions remain about the identity of the nation’s 44th president. As of Thursday, one was answered: When will the United States again elect a sitting U.S. to be president? That would be this year, unless Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul pulls off a miracle. Since John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960, only four senators have even won their party’s nominations — Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, George McGovern and John Kerry. During the entire 20th century, the only senators to win the presidency were Kennedy and Warren G. Harding (in photo). The conventional wisdom is that a Senate voting record is too big a target for opponents, and that voters like the executive experience that ex-governors provide. What’s different this time, when Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have moved to the front?
Seen at a Lawrence caucus Tuesday — someone in a “Barack Chalk Jayhawk†shirt. The subgroup of Obama supporters came together via Facebook, naturally. And the candidate knows about them. “So, you’re the Barack Chalk Jayhawks,†Obama said when he encountered the youthful group last summer at a Kansas City, Mo., event. (No word, though, on whether he knows anything about the University of Kansas’ “Rock Chalk Chant,†which Teddy Roosevelt is said to have called the greatest college chant he’d ever heard.)
The moral and legal morass the Bush administration has created for itself on waterboarding was on full display this week in a tangled web of tortured statements from the administration.
