Did you hear Obama had an intimate sit-down dinner with progressive/liberal journalists, pundits & bloggers Tuesday night? Yeah-- Glenn was there, and Rachel, and Keith.....Oops, make that George (Will), David (Brooks) and Bill (Kristol). Eight years of Bush/Cheney weren't enough. Now their head cheerleaders get a seat at the table with the Democratic President-elect. And I've been sick of the "Team of Rivals" meme for two months already. Now this? To paraphrase John Malkocich's character in "Burn After Reading," WTF?

"You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said."

This is completely absurd. I don't think of torture that way. That's Bush's definition of torture according to the Yoo memo!

"Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

Its crazy that she seeks to make that view seem like some kind of global consensus, and the rest of the world's definition of torture to be some odd reality no one had ever described before this one case.

Mr Snoid: It's 'cause [Sartre] wrote Les jews sont faits!

Actually it is Les Jeux sont faits, or, The Game is Up. Have not read it, but don't think it has anything to do with Jews -- and I further think you were being a comic and already know this. :)

sysprog : Sorry if I got into a snit. I just have had several occasions where Anglo commenters go off into German and I had no idea what they are writing -- that ticks me off.

Jim Montague wrote: Bill Kristol, Limbaugh, and Krauthammer that did it for me.

All three of those were at this dinner? Well, if so. .

Doesn't it seem that there's a possibility that post 1/20 there is a generally bloodletting among the torturers. Now that both Cheney and Bush have led the way by admitting they authorized torture, could it be that all the rest come out of their dark corners, sacrificing their supervisors as quicklyl as they can?

I am perhaps being overly optimistic, but it feels like the continuous dribbles of new information we're getting now threaten to overwhelm the MSM's constant "don't look to the past," bandage-on-a-severed-artery narrative.

Even if it were to come to pass, would people feel that bloodletting was the cure? In other words, once the grotesqueness is all out on the table, does anyone really want to piece through it and prosecute? Or could it go the other way: a steep, but sticky slide to criminal proceedings?

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004174

How does American law propose to treat an executive who authorizes or condones the torture of a prisoner in time of war? The precedent is clear, and it is a matter of our nation’s proto-constitutional history–back to 1649.

The charge, repeated the prosecutor, was that the executive had violated the laws of nations in that he authorized or indulged the torture and brutal mistreatment of prisoners taken in wartime. The commissioners deliberated and rendered their verdict: The charge against the defendant was sustained, the defendant was guilty as charged. And then the punishment was fixed. How does one punish an executive for violation of the laws of nations by authorizing the torture of prisoners? The verdict was that he be taken to a place of execution, where his head was to be severed from his body by an axe.

The Yoo definition is from a piece of law that determines when an EMS worker thinks they are dealing with a "life-threatening emergency", as part of defining when Medicare pays for the ambulance ride. I'm just an EMT, but bradycardia consisting of a pulse of 35 is a life-threatening emergency, so it actually fits the Yoo definition, too. (Inadequate circulation : patient in shock : patient is dying of cardiac failure).

She's a lifelong Republican (Reagan appeals court judge) and really, really wanted to not find this. She still thinks Qahtani shouldn't go free, but that we don't have a choice. She also thinks ultimately the accountability lies with Bush. She said so.

Everything this administration dud was, had a, illegal basis to it.

Otherwise we would not have done it.

Secondly, everything we did was in consultation with professionals.

The quote from FDR in the first comment is a good one; I have a similar one drawn from personal experience.

Some years ago I was involved in a project to lobby Congress to end the war in Vietnam. I and a colleague met with Rep. Pete McClosky, a California Republican who had co-sponsored several resolutions seeking to cut off funding for the war.

We spoke for about 10 minutes, maybe a little longer, but the pull quote from that conversation was him saying "Keep my feet to the fire." He made it clear that he was getting a lot of pressure from the pro-war side and he needed war opponents to keep their own pressure up if only because it enabled him to say "Look, my constituents are demanding this, I can't ignore them."

We can't forget the other side will be in there pushing whether we are or not. That is as true with Obama now as it was with McClosky then.

I think what we are seeing is that the military/Pentagon people are anticipating no longer being under gag orders. Those that have wanted to speak out, together with those who feel it is in their own best interest to, are going to file one by one to the public microphone, unless someone convenes an investigation and takes their testimony. For people like David Frakt, I think they are bearing witness. For Susan Crawford, it's part that and part distancing. At this point, my prediction is that if Barack Obama doesn't investigate, the investigation will go on without him, and he won't be on the right side of history until he gets on board. There's more than enough out there for Britain (for example) to proceed if we don't. More than enough for a Security Council resolution, too. PEBO would look awful vetoing one.