Victoria Toensing, former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration:
Sen. Patrick Leahy wants an independent commission to investigate them. Rep. John Conyers wants the Obama Justice Department to prosecute them. Liberal lawyers want to disbar them, and the media maligns them.
What did the Justice Department attorneys at George W. Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) — John Yoo and Jay Bybee — do to garner such scorn? They analyzed a 1994 criminal statute prohibiting torture when the CIA asked for legal guidance on interrogation techniques for a high-level al Qaeda detainee (Abu Zubaydah).
In the mid-1980s, when I supervised the legality of apprehending terrorists to stand trial, I relied on a decades-old Supreme Court standard: Our capture and treatment could not “shock the conscience” of the court. The OLC lawyers, however, were not asked what treatment was legal to preserve a prosecution. They were asked what treatment was legal for a detainee who they were told had knowledge of future attacks on Americans.
The 1994 law was passed pursuant to an international treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. The law’s definition of torture is circular. Torture under that law means “severe physical or mental pain or suffering,” which in turn means “prolonged mental harm,” which must be caused by one of four prohibited acts. The only relevant one to the CIA inquiry was threatening or inflicting “severe physical pain or suffering.” What is “prolonged mental suffering”? The term appears nowhere else in the U.S. Code.
Congress required, in order for there to be a violation of the law, that an interrogator specifically intend that the detainee suffer prolonged physical or mental suffering as a result of the prohibited conduct. Just knowing a person could be injured from the interrogation method is not a violation under Supreme Court rulings interpreting “specific intent” in other criminal statutes.
In the summer of 2002, the CIA outlined 10 interrogation methods that would be used only on Abu Zubaydah, who it told the lawyers was “one of the highest ranking members of” al Qaeda, serving as “Usama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant.” According to the CIA, Zubaydah had “been involved in every major” al Qaeda terrorist operation including 9/11, and was “planning future terrorist attacks” against U.S. interests.
Most importantly, the lawyers were told that Zubaydah — who was well-versed in American interrogation techniques, having written al Qaeda’s manual on the subject — “displays no signs of willingness” to provide information and “has come to expect that no physical harm will be done to him.” When the usual interrogation methods were used, he had maintained his “unabated desire to kill Americans and Jews.”
The CIA and Department of Justice lawyers had two options: continue questioning Zubaydah by a process that had not worked or escalate the interrogation techniques in compliance with U.S. law. They chose the latter.
The Justice Department lawyers wrote two opinions totaling 54 pages. One went to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, the other to the CIA general counsel.
Both memos noted that the legislative history of the 1994 torture statute was “scant.” Neither house of Congress had hearings, debates or amendments, or provided clarification about terms such as “severe” or “prolonged mental harm.” There is no record of Rep. Jerrold Nadler — who now calls for impeachment and a criminal investigation of the lawyers — trying to make any act (e.g., waterboarding) illegal, or attempting to lessen the specific intent standard.
The Gonzales memo analyzed “torture” under American and international law. It noted that our courts, under a civil statute, have interpreted “severe” physical or mental pain or suffering to require extreme acts: The person had to be shot, beaten or raped, threatened with death or removal of extremities, or denied medical care. One federal court distinguished between torture and acts that were “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.” So have international courts. The European Court of Human Rights in the case of Ireland v. United Kingdom (1978) specifically found that wall standing (to produce muscle fatigue), hooding, and sleep and food deprivation were not torture.
The U.N. treaty defined torture as “severe pain and suffering.” The Justice Department witness for the Senate treaty hearings testified that “[t]orture is understood to be barbaric cruelty . . . the mere mention of which sends chills down one’s spine.” He gave examples of “the needle under the fingernail, the application of electrical shock to the genital area, the piercing of eyeballs. . . .” Mental torture was an act “designed to damage and destroy the human personality.”
The treaty had a specific provision stating that nothing, not even war, justifies torture. Congress removed that provision when drafting the 1994 law against torture, thereby permitting someone accused of violating the statute to invoke the long-established defense of necessity.
The memo to the CIA discussed 10 requested interrogation techniques and how each should be limited so as not to violate the statute. The lawyers warned that no procedure could be used that “interferes with the proper healing of Zubaydah’s wound,” which he incurred during capture. They observed that all the techniques, including waterboarding, were used on our military trainees, and that the CIA had conducted an “extensive inquiry” with experts and psychologists.
But now, safe in ivory towers eight years removed from 9/11, critics demand criminalization of the techniques and the prosecution or disbarment of the lawyers who advised the CIA.
Scapegoating is bad enough. But it’s the sanctimony of cowards who’ve never had to make such calls that truly rankles.
I’m not sure at what moment, precisely, the US became a nation of designer-suited children playing power games with the lives of fellow citizens. But it happened — and it sickens me to such a degree that I can’t even stand reading about it anymore.
I have nothing really substantive to say here. I’ve already written essays explaining how the inability (though more likely it was an unwillingness) of our legislators to define torture in a way that left no doubt as to what it is, that has created openings for the opportunistic and the sanctimonious — neither of which groups had ever to make the difficult decisions about how to protect a nation against those bent on attacking it — to harangue, demonize, and potentially prosecute those who circumstances demanded make the very determinations cowardly legislators refused to do themselves.
You want to know what torture is? The severe mental anguish born of knowing that there are politicians in your country who, in exchange for increasing their own hold on power, will readily discount the difficulty of your choices in dealing with the prospect of additional unanounced attacks by suicidal fundamentalists and then try publicly to pillory you for making them, all in an effort to win a bit cheap grace.
What has become of this country and its people?
(h/t Terry H)
****
related: Andrew McCarthy:
The Attorney General may perhaps want to take a look at the brief his Justice Department filed about three weeks ago in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Torture is a specific intent crime — both the Justice Department and the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals have explained that a person cannot commit it unless he has the intent, motive and purpose to torture (i.e., inflict severe pain on) the victim. The question is not, as Holder claimed, whether it was “logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person”? With a general intent crime, the adage is that people are deemed to intend the natural, logical consequences of their actions. But that’s not enough for specific intent crimes like torture.
[from AG Holder’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee]:
Rep. Louie Gohmert: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct?
Attorney General Eric Holder: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.
Gohmert: So what kind of intent were you talking about?
Holder: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?
Gohmert: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.
Holder: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.
[…]
If Holder is correct that the military trainer does not commit torture because it is not his intent to inflict severe pain but to “equip” our military to deal with what he calls “illegal acts,” then the CIA interrogator cannot be guilty of torture either since his intent is not to inflict severe pain but to collect life-saving information.
[my emphases]
I’m not going to lapse into a long dissertation at this point on why it is important that meaning be ground in the intent of the “author”/”speaker”; suffice to say that, even should a “reasonable” outside interpreter survey the “text” and conclude that the acts witnessed appear to rise to the level of torture, that interpreter would be incorrect, given that the intent of those performing the act did not, by intent, rise to the level of torture, and were in fact designed specifically to avoid rising to that level.
That the precise interpretive battle that I’ve long described as being crucial to how our very epistemology is grounded (and secondarily, how policy comes to be formed, understood, culturally prescribed, and institutionalized) is being waged here, should be completely obvious from the exchange: Holder pretends that intent rests with the actor responsible for performing the interrogation; but then he switches gears and notes that intent is “determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances” — by which he means a “reasonable” interpretive entity dispassionately viewing the entire “text” and deciding upon meaning.
Were that the case, however, Holder and his “triers of fact” would perforce be required, in lieu of getting into the minds of each individual interrogator (and Holder has no desire to go after the foot soldiers), to argue that in general the actors whose intent he claims to be determining engaged in something other than what they claimed to be engaging in. That is, to decide that the interrogators were engaging in “torture”, he has to argue that they are lying about what their intent was — that, in spite of their claim that they intended to get information that could save lives, they were instead interested primarily in inflicting harm. Otherwise, by law, they were not engaging in torture.
Not wishing to make that argument, Holder instead resorts to trying to have it both ways: knowing he needs to establish intent on the part of the actors, he brackets the foundational piece of evidence for establishing that intent (gathering information to save lives) and replaces that, in a predictable bit of interpretive sleight of hand, with an entirely different locus for intent (and so for estabishing meaning): is it “logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?”
Note that Holder is suddenly no longer concerned with the intent of the actors. Instead, he wants us to consider how someone other than the actor might “logically” understand the purpose of the act.
Which raises several questions: To whom is it “logical,” in Holder’s formulation? And based on what criteria? Holder knows that it was logical to those charged with performing the interrogations; and so he knows that from the intentionalist perspective, he hasn’t described torture. So what he wants us to do is determine whether we find it logical that the interrogations, once the intent of the actual actors has been removed, fits the description of torture. Or, to put it another way, he is hoping that we’ll rewrite the meaning of torture and then privilege our own rewriting of the text over the intent of those who “wrote” the original.
And this is why when I’ve argued repeatedly that it matters what we think we’re doing when we “interpret,” well, it matters what we think we’re doing when we interpret.
The linguistic arguments I’ve made here — far from being airy and abstract and unimportant, as some have suggested — are in fact central to how our laws will be written and understood. Beyond even that, however, by adopting a particular idea about how interpretation works — and consequently, declaring, by way of accepting a particular interpretive premise, where meaning is grounded and who owns that meaning — we of necessity have adopted a set of kernel assumptions that will lead either to privileging an interpretive community (as Holder would have it here) or privileging the individual and the individual’s autonomy when it comes to meaning.
When this decision about how language functions is extrapolated out to society as a whole by way of law and precedent, it becomes the foundational model upon which a society will operate.
Is it any wonder, then, that “progressives” would like to see meaning controlled by those who would presume to wrest it from the individual and grant it to a particular group?
Linguistic socialism, prescribed by the totalitarians / fascists who aim to control language and divvy up the spoils of their labor of usurpation.
To those who’ve argued in the past that such things don’t matter — that all that matters is the pragmatic strategy of regaining power — I say it’s time to wake up already.
Every time you cede language by way of accepting an incoherent notion of how meaning is determined, you cede ground to those who are content to march us slowly toward totalitarianism.
So for Chrissakes, wake up already, would you please?
(h/t Darleen and dicentra)
i intend holder’s
inference is commonstance
among lying fucks
Further related matter on the subject “still haven’t read”, from Michael Stokes Paulsen in WeeklyStandard, by way of Powerline, which has it’s own comments worth reading.
Andy McCarthy, in distinct contrast to Speaker Pelosi, has had one whale of a good week at NRO, on these and related subjects.
thank you, Jeff, for writing on this … I knew when I read that piece on NRO that some Republicans not only “got it” re: intentionalism but were willing to go toe to toe with Holder over it.
Knock me over but it looks like a couple of solid vertebrae in the GOP spine.
“The truth is that no currently incorporated entity that I have seen or heard of is capable, deserving, and able to unify us.” Not as well as Obama has unified the left. I’m willing to bet that the whole kit and kaboodle of those who support the fabulousness of Obama would rather see this country disintegrate before they stopped hating Bush and loving Obama.
Victoria Toensing makes a difference and not in a gay way. She’s different from Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn.
Elian Gonzalez.
Good stuff, Jeff. In Holder’s case, I think you have it exactly right.
However, your point of “pay attention to what you’re doing while interpreting” also extends to those who are simply uncomfortable with not having neat conclusions.
For instance, let’s say that the intent of the actors was slightly less straightforward. Well, the proper legal resolution would be an acquittal — or no charges brought in the first place. The proper literary resolution would be an acknowledgment that one didn’t know exactly what the author was saying. But, people, broadly speaking, don’t like that, it’s unsatisfying, like not being able to remember someone’s name. They like pretending “to know” even when there isn’t enough enough information “to know”.
What the devious, like Holder, play upon is your average person’s discomfort with our fuzzy, incomplete understanding of the world.
They won’t wake up till bound hand and foot.
i’m as frustrated as hamilton burger
losing to a gay guy who’s got a hot
sexterry named della street
really/ i think i won one case/
how can u drown ur sorrows looking at lt. tragg?
So for Chrissakes, wake up already, would you please?
Jeff’s sort-of like our Matrix’s Morpheus, but more hands-on, knee to the balls, arm-bar, snap-your-femur than Laurence Fischbourne.
… and I’m okay with that.
pdbuttons
I wonder how many people here recognize that hamilton burger reference without Googling it.
red pills for everyone before it’s too late!
I heard Raymond Burr was one of the meanest gays in Ho-wood.
Because they’re usually all cuddly, like Roy Cohn.
When the hell will the Diet Coke kick in???
the case can be made
that protein wisdom readers
know a hamburger
Little dude should have listened to Phil Collins. It’s no fun being an illegal Elian.
If I say the way Nancy sucks is really unsatisfying, will that upset the people at Salon?
McGehee, Phil Collins must die.
Eric Holder isn’t going to last two years if he has to keep defending the diseased reasoning spewed out by Pelosi, Reid and Obama.
That is if I thought he was smart.
Obviously the “smart” part of power didn’t include Holder, (or a whole host of others we have seen ascending to power) so Holder may not even last that long.
Another fool who is only employed due to media hero worship of Obama is that press secretary knucklehead… he is stupid because he lies even when the truth the easier option and soon enough the press will torture the heck out him until he loses control of even the pet reporters in the room
But Jeff, a chick at work totally believes that Tommy Hilwahtshisname went on Oprah, one of the prime destroyers, in a totally Shiva way, of our culture, Oprah, I mean, and said he doesn’t make clothes for black people.
You could his this chick with Snopes all day, you could hit her with the actual living Oprah, but she’d persist in believing a clothing manufacturer would voluntarily, nay, cheerfully and arrogantly, dismiss a section of the clothing market ON THE SHOW OF A BLACK WOMAN.
This is a big reason why I can’t teach any more. The Stupid is unassailable.
“Hit,” I mean. “Hit this chick.”
Seriously, we all could jump up and down and scream as loudly as possible with the most rational arguments and the simplest words ever, but too much of the population is voluntarily and cheerfully and arrogantly enjoying being part of The Stupid.
Great Post Jeff, this illustrates clearly what Conservatives such as myself have known for years.
Libs hate America. When a worthless libtard puke asks me if I am questioning his patriotism, I say “No, you have no patriotism.”
We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have risked their lives and careers in effort to keep us safe. Libs always err to the side of our enemies. Che Obama has traveled the world apologizing for us. I don’t need Opie to apologize for America. We have nothing to apologize for.
Until I read McCarthy’s piece, I had no idea that the criminality of torture resided in the intent, not the raw nature of the act. That changes everything.
Which means that criminal intent can be summed up in one word: sadism.
And nobody sane, left or right, agrees that sadism should be a part of prisoner detention. Not in any degree.
perry mason and sherlock holmes in
the case of the hounds
of a little north of bakersfield
don’t wanna bark about the ending but…
’tis the
the eyes that didn’t blink
Dicentra, libtards believe that Bush and Cheney are sadists. I’m just praying that the next attack on America is in San Francisco.
At the McCarthy link, Andrew notes:
Sen. Kennedy posed an amendment in 2006 that would have specified waterboarding as a war crime — something he wouldn’t have needed to do if it were already a war crime. The amendment was defeated
But since we’ve already seen that the Obama administration isn’t much interested in rule of law if it crosses their glorious purposes, that won’t stop them.
But the public needs to know these choice tidbits. Most of them would come down on the side of rule of law.
If you trust Andrew Sullivan on the subject, who is relying mostly on Ron Suskind, Zubaydah is some low level al Qaeda flunky mentally retarded go-for. I am not buying that. Even if he was not one of the top leaders, anyone high enough in al Qaeda to have regular direct contact with bin Laden, KSM, and Zarahiri has important knowledge.
I still think the Col. Herrington way is the best way to interrogate. Percentage wise it promotes a better interrogator, who over all will get better information. Policywise it is important because the USA is supposed to be above this sort of thing. Once you go down the road of physical interrogation with a prisoner, there is really no where else to go. But this attack by the left on the CIA interrogation program is nuts. The American people are not going to support political war crime prosecutions for waterboarding KSM. They may (like me) say no more waterboarding. But to suggest this is the equivalent of the Nuremburg trials is insane.
And I also did not support impeaching Bill Clinton for lying under oath about cheating on his wife. Censor, sure, impeachment was a stupid idea from the start.
And they may, one day, find themselves in a position in which they fervently wish they hadn’t.
Exactly, Sdferr.
I’d venture to bet that most people who are against “torture” of the kind that isn’t really torture (but they are fearful looks that way) are against it on the bet that they will never be directly, personally saved by it.
I think it ought to be known to those who’d target civilians that we’ll do whatever it takes within the boundaries of the law to make sure they are unable to target civilians. And yes, that includes things that they might consider torture but that we do not — such as having scantily clad women interrogate them, or by having Jews in the room, in addition to things like sleep deprivation, temperature changes, wall standing, and waterboarding.
That, to me, is moral.
Well, I remember after 911 listening to Andy Rooney whimper that he was literally afraid “of the end of the world” and Maureen Dowd shrieking about being unable to find Ciprio. All I’m asking is that they both shit their pants in public during the next scare and that someone writes it up on Fox.
another one of the scarier aspects of the Left’s hijacking of language is that everytime they insist on applying their own definition to a word, they cheapen it. Hence, “waterboarding is torture” leaves little room to be shocked if one says “jihadists torture” … unless one goes into long explanations about the use of power drills to kneecaps and skulls in order to inflict pain and punishment …
They’ve already done it to “rape”
I just hope nobody else ever gets smeared with fake menstrual blood or wrapped in an Israeli flag. The horror. The horror.
Why not use real menstrual blood?
It isn’t like the Gitmo terrorists haven’t had real blood on their hands…
To return to the cause and font of this grotesquerie, here is an edited, short video (3:10 total runtime) of Pres. Obama speaking to the CIA at Langley. It is hard to watch, god knows, but it ought to be seen nevertheless, as a clear demonstration of a moral cretin in action.
I want to especially call to your attention the part of the speech beginning at 1:47 in and running up to 2:15. I’ve transcribed it here for you to read first. As you listen to Obama, note the tone of voice and rising pitch of the phrases “made some mistakes” and “that’s how we learn”, and the inflection of the resolving rhetorical question “Alright?”: the teaching he proposes to give the CIA employees, as though they are — we are — what, his errant children? The blatherous nature of “that is precisely why I am proud to be POTUS and that’s why you should be proud to be in the CIA” we can safely pass over in silence.
He is not worthy of us. Not in the least.
For the broader picture of the whole event (and a better camera angle) see this, if you can stomach it.
Oh, please. Andrew Sullivan is a drama queen. He’s certainly not confuse-ble with any kind of serious thinker.
ushie, you’ve nailed it. What Jeff does is valuable; it gives us the tools to have a debate and an argument. It is necessary, but not sufficient, because the Left isn’t interested in having an honest debate; they are interested in power.
That’s why I am not interested in having a debate with them. I’m interested in removing them, as permanently and with as little risk to me or those I still consider my countrymen as possible.
You don’t duel with a Copperhead; you kill it before it knows you’re there. Once the head is off, the rest may thrash around, but it isn’t a danger and can be entertaining.
And, yes, there are a lot of people who are enjoying the stupid, because they don’t perceive any downside to the stupid. Part of any attempt to restore classical liberalism is to restore consequences to stupid.
I find it revealing that these leftie douchebags (and that category ESPECIALLY includes The One) have a thoroughly dismissive attitude towards “American Exceptionalism,” until there’s a rumor that we did something UNexceptional. Then, all of a sudden, they’re all about the “shining city on the hill” and the “beacon of goodness for all humanity”. EVERY other shithole country on the planet treats their prisoners like something you scrape off your shoe, but we cross a dubious line, and the shit hits the fan. It’s like they hate us, or something.
Most of the moonbat pinheads I talk to are opposed to torture for the same reason they are opposed to war and hold all of their other beliefs. It allows them to feel morally superior and to think they are really making a difference without having to actually do anything.
And I remember thinking Della Street was hot as a damn match when I was too young to even know what that meant.
Wow. I just found out Della Street spawned the Greatest American Hero.
Really? I’d like to see this data that you are relying on. You have a link?
Really? Why is that?
Does Harrington not understand good cop/bad cop? I can’t figure what that cat’s deal is.
Was it Bobby Dahl who said, “Thinking is hard?”
and I would cheerfully, nay arrogantly, hook up some fiend’s testicles to a car battery, forcefeed him caterpillars, and Carrie his worthless ass with 100 gallons of pig’s blood to save one American life.
Oh, for crying out loud, Joe. Why don’t you just cut and paste this:
I don’t agree with EIT, but…
You could start every comment with that. Or we could all just stipulate for the record that you don’t like it. You don’t have to bring it up with every comment, OK?
BTW, below is a quote I have posted here before, but it bears repeating.
“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the
high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The
laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country
when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country
by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law
itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are
enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the
means.” —Thomas Jefferson
Super excellent job Jeff!
I ♥ Victoria Toensing. Nicely done, Jeff.
I know I haven’t been around for a while — don’t ask. But I can say that Jeff’s posts on this subject some years back have definitely altered my world-view. The thought that communication can be evaluated primarily by its meaning to the recipient is one of the stupidest and most dangerous memes floating around — and in this Glorious Age of Obama, that’s really saying something.
We’re going to have a couple of the godkids come by over the next few weekends. Thanks for reminding me about some of the critical thinking I hope to instill in them.
If you’ve ever worked for the government, you’ve seen in action what happens when Following The Rules takes precedence over everything else: quality, efficiency, common sense, etc. It devolves from mere “law and order” to sclerotic absurdity, which in many cases have the most bizarre and harmful unintended consequences imaginable.
Think of the example where a guy was shot right outside the door of an emergency room, but because regulations prevented the medical personnel from going outside, the guy bled to death.
Joe, you really need to read what neo-neocon said on the price for keeping our hands clean, and why insisting on Being Moral can in some cases be patently immoral. There is a hierarchy of morals, and sometimes a thing that is morally reprehensible in 99.99% of cases is the only moral choice in that rare 0.01% case.
Contrary to how it feels, taking an absolutist stand on any act is not a sign of moral superiority, it’s a sign of moral immaturity. It means that you cannot recognize the nuance (!) of moral conundrums, and that it’s nigh on impossible to say that something is always always always wrong.
Jewish intellectual history is filled to overflowing with rabbis trying to say what would be moral in this situation or that, and regardless of whether you agree with their conclusions, you cannot escape how complicated making moral judgments is, and how the addition of one small element can change the whole thing.
Also, there’s the example of the Gentile woman who committed repeated fornication with a Nazi to prevent his finding out about the Jews she was hiding in her house. Was she a slut or an saint?
If you cannot discern that preventing mass murder is a greater moral priority than keeping our hands clean from the suspicion of “torture,” then you have some growing up to do.
Sorry, but that’s how it is.
Okay, I really like dicentra.
Me too, he chimed. Always have.
Dicentra,
That was pure gold. Thank You.
Thanks, I’ll be here all night. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.
Wow. Whoda thunk?
Yeah, that damned Fix News, eh Olby? Like illegal immigrants they are, doing the jobs that Real American Reporters won’t do.
Note Gibbsy derisively muttering “fair and balanced” at 1:18. After, of course, refusing to answer the question.
Why would the American people care what the President thinks about the Speaker of the House accusing the CIA of lying to Congress? Is that above Bammy’s pay grade, or beneath it?
What used to pass for news has just become embarrassing. Some of my neighbors, who I know watch the networks and listen to NPR, have begun prefacing all statements with “Now, normally we don’t watch XBC, but I saw…”
So agreeing to accuse the CIA of repeated and ongoing lying. Later in the news conference she says
[…] Jeff Goldstein sees the hijacking of language again, and I don’t disagree at all. […]
Dellllllllllllllla.
Della and the dealer and a dog named Jake
And a cat named Kalamazoo…
If that cat could talk, what a tale he’d tell.
Interesting. I blame Bush.
Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup…
Happy Sunday! Another fantastic day in America. This pinup is by Harry Ekman, with a wee bit of help from Chip and Dale.
What is happening in ye olde blogosphere?
Fausta asks why Queen Nancy lies
Jules Crittenden is getting all Cheney
The Sundries Sh…
[…] House released. Dick Cheney keeps talking, with critics and admirers unable to agree even on the ontological nature of his […]
i heard the …al qauda peeps
were shoppin in amerikka for car that go boom!
then they saw perry mason 1964 convertible
with suicide doors..
and della street…
and they prayed mucho/mucho time
for allahenryfordallah
to hurry
the fudge up