We can't be certain what the members of the CIA and FBI oversight committees were told regarding torture. Considering the track record of Buscho and the continuing track record of its highest functionaries, it's likely what they were told bore little or no resemblance to anything bordering on the truth.

Certainly everyone and anyone who was aware this was going on deserves penalties, but please bear in mind that these briefings were classified. The public, at the point when all this started was thirsty for blood, ANYBODY'S blood. If any Democratic member of the oversight committees had come forward with this information, Buscho would simply have lied and the committee member, would have been ripped to shreds in the servile MSM (probably as "soft on terroism") and kicked off the committee. A new Democratic member of the committee would have been appointed.

Political reality: NOTHING WOULD HAVE CHANGED AS THE RESULT OF A DEMOCRAT COMING FORWARD.

On the other hand, if a well-respected, senior Republican had come forward it might have had greater impact (but likely not).

As you're passing judgment on the past, don't forget what that past was like (you can remember that violent/paranoid ethos if you try). I didn't like it either, but it was what it was at the time!

(And yes, I'd like to see those who fanned the flames of hatred and violence, created that ethos and then took advantage of it to play out their most violent fascist impulses get locked up for a very long time, perhaps even waterboarded.

But then again, "'Vengeance is mine. I will repay,' says the Lord." I am confident that those responsible will find the next life quite... challenging.

Just ask the folks at Stacker, Digital Research, Netscape and Lotus about Microsoft's monopolistic practices. Each of those companies had products far superior to what Microsoft was offering, but Bill and his boys got away with stealing (not buying) their ideas, incorporating much lesser versions of those ideas into Microsoft's products, coercing (by hook or by crook) computer manufacturers into using their operating system and, because Microsoft's latest version included some pale semblance of the products offered by those companies who's ideas they had stolen, the superior companies went out of business, Microsoft prospered, and the consumer suffered with decidedly lesser products (that didn't work, lost data, were less capable, or caused frequent computer crashes).

But hey! None of that matters, does it? Didn't Bill and his boys and girls all get FABULOUSLY wealthy? So what if they destroyed other, better businesses and screwed their customers? (that was bitter sarcasm, in case you missed it)

Isn't that what "free market" was really always all about? Screwing your competitors, screwing your customers, screwing your investors, screwing your employees, screwing up the planet and getting rich in the process?

The fact is, having the background of "American white, upper class, privileged male" flavors your perspective of what the "law" is and what "justice" is just as completely as any perspective born of another background or culture of origin.

Privileged upper class males are so accustomed to having their perspective be seen as THE TRUTH that they don't even realize that they, themselves judge reality in ways that are every bit as SUBjective as they believe Ms. Sotomayor does.

Their version of "Truth" and "Justice" is only a single, culturally-conditioned and culturally-limited perspective, no more, nor less valid than any other.

The fact is, it will be very helpful to the SCOTUS to have a strong-voiced member who will help broaden the perspectives of those who have, time and time again, demonstrated how sexist, outmoded, limited, upper-class oriented and tragically short-sighted their point of view is.

How do we find a way to get the healthcare companies, indeed, the entire industry to ignore Wall Street's continuous demand for maximum quarterly profit and maximized shareholder value which, OF NECESSITY and by clear practice, REQUIRE that the healthcare industry ignore patient outcomes and best practices in order to maximize revenue (so clearly illustrated in the policies and practices of the pharmaceutical industry).

Unless we can cut Wall Street out of the equation (say, with a government healthcare plan?) we will continue to travel exactly the same road on which we have already come much too far. The fact is, Wall Street will be DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY when the poor and middle class have no medical care at all because those at the top of the income scale are where the profit really lies.

If the poor and middle class die early, it will help ensure no tax increases to prop up medicare and social security, too, won't it?

This, of course is what our darling Governor, Tim Pawlenty, meant here in Minnesota when he said that "increases in the health and human services budget were unsustainable" that people better be prepared to just die rather than expect reasonable medical care, especially if they're old or have been laid off.