A. Steinberg: "The parts which are new in the Yoo memo, like the infamous "the Fourth Amendment is not applicable to domestic military operations" footnote or the parts about the President not being bound by the Convention Against Torture, are a little too technical for many people to follow or care about."

The 4th Amendment is what the Founding Fathers of our country put in the Constitution to protect us from government forces breaking into our homes without warning and kidnapping us and stealing our stuff for no reason. But the Bush Administration decided on its own that this part of the Constitution is now void, and that it can do whatever it wants to American citizens regardless of what the Constitution says.

Pretty simple, no? And if it were ever explained simply in the mainstream media, we could then find out whether people care about it.

Your circular argumment exemplifies the Republican/Big Media strategery of ignoring or suppressing information, and then citing the lack of public attention to the matter as proof that "no one cares."

And by the way, if the Yoo torture memo is irrelevant old news, why'd it make you think about voting for Obama?

In 2003, McArdle wrote, with crystalline clarity, that although she did not believe torture should be offically authorized under U.S. law, torture should nevertheless be a viable option for American government personnel, who would have, in those hidden rooms, basically unfettered personal discretion to decide when torture should be utilized and what hideous cruelties should be inflicted on human beings who may or may not know anything or be guilty of anything. (Of course, the idea that any torturers would ever be "punished" under such a regime is a joke.)

In the current post, Glenn simply said what is self-evidently true: that McArdle's writing from 2003 is, to put it mildly, inconsistent with her present-day claim to have always opposed torture on moral grounds with no regard for its alleged utility in obtaining information.

How on earth did Glenn "slander" her? If I were a blogger, I'd be a lot less polite than Glenn, and call her a lying, morally debased wretch.

Rob Mac: "Gator90, everyone already has "unfettered personal discretion" to do whatever they want if they are willing to face punishment for their actions. Any cop can already torture or even murder any suspect if he's willing to be punished for this."

Sure, but with cops, there is an institutionalized system for monitoring their conduct and punishing offenders. A citizen tortured by the police can file a complaint and seek to have the matter investigated. (Cops, unlike torturers in the Age of Bush, generally cannot keep people locked up indefinitely to keep them quiet.) If you think a cop has committed a murder, you can report him or her to the proper authorities like anybody else. You will not be forbidden to pursue the matter on national security grounds.

But how, exactly, is an American interrogator in a secret "hidden room" ever going to face punishment under the McArdle regime? To whom does the victim complain? Who would ever know? The only way any such punishment could ever occur would be through an institutionalized system of monitoring interrogators and investigating reported abuses. This, of course, would require carefully defined rules, regulations, and procedures -- exactly what McArdle says she doesn't want. That is why Bush's torturers have unfettered discretion that the worst rogue cop could only dream of.

What McArdle and her ilk DO want is quite clear. They want to live in George Bush's America, where the United States does not torture because it is the United States and whatever it does is not-torture by definition, but with the wink-wink nudge-nudge that all manner of savagery may be unleashed upon the brownfolks in secret and we don't wanna know about it and we won't ask any questions, and dammit Greenwald don't spoil our beautiful minds with those nasty images that we're not, not, NOT responsible for in any way.

Rob: "Gator90, in the same post that you quote me from, I also said the following: 'My personal belief is that all government interrogations should be videotaped, and that no information gathered from an interrogation that wasn't videotaped should be admisable in court.'"

I'm not sure what your point is here, honestly. Do you think that the main purpose of torture is to produce evidence that will be admissible in a court proceeding? I thought we were talking about discretionary decisions supposedly made under severe time constraints, allegedly in order to disrupt terror plots, prevent imminent attacks, save lives, etc.

I admire your willingness to remain civil while arguing with 10 people at once, but you're just not making sense here.

As much as I hate to bicker over who killed who, etc, your thumbnail sketch of the 1967 war omitted some facts that are worth knowing. Israel's decision to attack was preceded by the Egyptian dictator's expulsion of the UN peacekeeping force from the Sinai Desert. The Sinai had been de-militarized by the UN in order to prevent further warfare between Israel and Egypt, but Egypt chose unilaterally to expel the UN and re-militarize it. Eqypt also blockaded Israel's ports, an act of war under international law. To portray the 1967 war as Israeli aggression is, to put it mildly, misleading.

Also, Israel did not attack Jordan. The hostilities between Israel and Jordan, resulting in Israel's ill-starred conquest of the West Bank, were initiated by Jordan a couple days into the war.