As a member of both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, Feinstein must have known about those destroyed CIA tapes (along with Rockefeller who said "we were provided with very limited information about the existence of the tapes") at the time of the Mukasey hearings. Yet none of this took the form of public questioning. She gave Mukasey his pass and declared the need to pass a law regarding waterboarding.

What a sorry shell game this whole thing is.

Here is Feinstein's observation on the Mukasey hearing most worthy of admiration: Rejecting Mukasey would allow "the Administration to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide and diminish effective oversight by Congress."

Transparency and congressional oversight. Hallmarks both of her behavior.

I don't disagree with a word you wrote. Our diplomatic position is a shambles. That shouldn't mean, however, that a post-Bush administration cannot return to a diplomatic path that reflects a better, democratic-focused foreign policy arguing for, among other things, political transparency. Of course the Iranian people should determine what course their society should take.

But we know what has happened to reformers in that country (and China, as well, for that matter). It would be a shame to see the US permanently depart from enlightened diplomacy because of Bush's actions. We are not condemned to tread his path in perpetuity.

What happened to the administration's muscular assertion of its imperial (sorry, Constitutional) powers? After all, it's certain the tapes reveal only "aggressive interrogations" in a legitimate effort to keep the nation safe from terrorism. Indeed, as we've been told repeatedly (usually during election cycles), such interrogation methods have stymied one plot after another. And since the tapes are now destroyed they cannot possibly contradict the administration's silky view of recent history, that muscular aggression in the fight against terrorism cannot be construed as torture.

It's a shame the Judiciary Committee doesn't simultaneously bring contempt charges against itself. The weak-kneed excuse that masqueraded as Mukasey's confirmation hearing was but a symptom of a larger malaise. Should these people decide to buck up, they can start to make use of their "inherent contempt" power and hold a trial in the Senate. The Post notes that "Democratic lawmakers have not displayed an appetite for reviving the practice." And that's the problem. Weakness, lack of appetite, and ultimately a shared contempt for the law are eroding the Constitution as much as Bush's idea of executive power.

The input by Gonzalez, Addington and Miers is no surprise, and the role of John Bellinger is consistent with his views reported by the Guardian newspaper in November where he "declined to rule out the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding even if it were applied by foreign intelligence services on US citizens." Of waterboarding, he said, "Well, I'm not willing to include it or exclude it. Our justice department has concluded that we just don't want to get involved in abstract discussions."

Well, nothing beats abstraction like evidence in the form of torture tapes. It's amazing how, in the face of legal liability, lawyerly language gives way to "'vigorous sentiment' among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes." Bravery all around, I'd say.

My typing fingers are thick and nearly useless so great is my stupification. George Orwell himself must be spinning in his grave out of, if nothing else, envy. This fellow has cornered and trademarked, with knee-buckling skill, the sad, dark art of doublespeak.

The attitude underlying the contemptuous dismissal of Dodd's and Feingold's objections (and ours, as well) displayed by msm and other officials, both elected and appointed, is nearly identical to the attitude regarding any serious impeachment effort against VP Cheney. Representatives Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin, members of the House Judiciary Committee all, couldn't even get their editorial on the matter published by the NY Times, WaPo, Boston Globe or LA Times. And this despite obvious violations of both the Constitution and various statutes. These media organs long ago cast aside serious examination of government, its representatives and--as representatives--their responsibility to the citizens of the United States.

It's unfortunate that Bhutto's assassination doesn't bring out even a simple awareness among candidates that Pakistan's institutional failures, abetted by American funding that's never targeted (indeed, has actually exacerbated) those weaknesses, don't merit attention. Thundering about terrorists and a war against them does nothing to bolster the oppressed and genuinely civil society that's currently breaking under the weight of Musharraf's boot. It's perplexing, frankly, that none of those running for the presidency--never mind the incumbent--can see this. It's as if, to bolster this war on terror, our so-called elite can't hurry fast enough to complete the destruction of civil society, both here and abroad.

Perhaps it's true that Iowans aren't too interested in foreign policy, as I've read, but Clinton might have commented somewhere on this day before the caucuses about Pakistan and its deathspin into utter failed-state chaos. Some members of Congress wrote to Sec.y Rice of their concerns regarding Bhutto's assassination and election delays. Yet even as they threatened to withhold funding in the absence of an independent investigation and timely elections, the Pentagon announced the sale of more F-16s to that nuclear-armed country. And this was just within the last two days. Surely this merits comment from someone who wants to lead the nation.