I should have also added this. It isn't likely that the Dems can confirm her with a super majority either as Glenn suggested was possible. Here's why: At least two Dems probably won't show up to vote on this: Byrd and Kennedy. And at least one: Ben Nelson isn't going to vote for her currently for reasons having to do with abortion statements she made a long time ago. There may be a few more conservative Dems who won't either. All the GOP needs to do is keep 38 votes in place.

Of course this could change but this is how it seems to be looking now.

George Orwell always springs to mind when you consider the attitude of the American media towards torture.

'Torture is OK when we do it but not when anybody else does it', or 'Torture is wrong except when it's right'.

If that's not a prime example of Orwellian doublethink I don't know what is.

The public attitude toward the abuses is conditioned by being in an Orwellian perpetual state of war. In war, conventional morality is inverted - it becomes noble to kill. More attention should be paid to ending this, or at least making people understand what is going on. Congress already has the constitutional power to control whether we are in a state of war or not.

A death toll of 3000 would be a fairly minor battle in a real war - Islamic terrorism does not represent a threat even remotely comparable to real war (though on the other hand it is not just simple law enforcement). Other dangers to life and property are far greater than terrorism, for example auto transportation (3000 is a few weeks' toll on the highways).

Obama definitely reversed himself on the specifics of torture etc. but he was always clear on his intention to continue perpetual war, in Afghanistan for example.

Barack Obama has inherited a legal fiasco of which a significant amount of terrorists have had the legal cases against them so tainted by corruption and abuse, that they will likely be found "not guilty" due to simply to Bush incompetence.

You meant to post on Redstate. I don't have the address on me, but google it and you'll find your way.

Jerry Nadler is holding a hearing on military commission "legal issues" this morning in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution:

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_090708.html

URL for live webcast:

http://judiciary.edgeboss.net/real-live/judiciary/17223/256_judiciary-coj_2141_070212.smi

Panel I is Rep. Adam Schiff (of the House Intelligence Committee)

Panel II includes Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld - an important eyewitness [His opening testimony is here: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Vandeveld090708.pdf]

Unlike Carl Levin's hearing yesterday, attended by Spencer (which has received significant mass media coverage), Nadler's hearing seems to be genuinely exploring the issue, rather than simply going through the motions with administration advocates to finalize settled positions. Though it's worth noting that David Kris of the Obama DOJ, at least based on superficial media reports, was apparently purposely pushing back on revised military commissions text already adopted by Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin that would allow "coerced evidence" in a revised military commission system. [See http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/07/froomkin/permalink/2bdb3455e5ebdc85472b258b57d8411c.html] Kris warned that such evidence would likely be considered unConstitutional by appeals courts.

Levin may be a bigger threat, in that respect, than the Obama DOJ (and more aligned with the Obama DOD and Jeh Johnson than Kris). Kris's testimony yesterday may help Russ Feingold resist the likes of Levin, if Feingold or Leahy or others stand their ground this time, instead of folding en masse as they did on the Military Commissions Act (no objections, no filibusters, etc.). The Armed Services Committee website still seems to be having technical difficulties today.

Two important related reports from yesterday:

The true depth of British involvement in the torture of terrorism suspects overseas and the manner in which that complicity is concealed behind a cloak of courtroom secrecy was laid bare last night when David Davis MP detailed the way in which one counter-terrorism operation led directly to a man suffering brutal mistreatment.

In a dramatic intervention using the protection of parliamentary privilege, the former shadow home secretary revealed how MI5 and Greater Manchester police effectively sub-contracted the torture of Rangzieb Ahmed to a Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), whose routine use of torture has been widely documented.

[...]

Addressing the Commons last night, Davis said: "A more obvious case of outsourcing of torture, a more obvious case of passive rendition, I cannot imagine. He should have been arrested by the UK in 2006. He was not. The authorities knew he intended to travel to Pakistan, so they should have prevented that. Instead, they suggested the ISI arrest him. They knew he would be tortured, and they organised to construct a list of questions and provide it to the ISI."

[...]

Yesterday the Guardian reported that Ahmed alleges he was recently visited by an MI5 officer and a police officer who said they could arrange for his sentence to be reduced, or for him to be paid money, if he withdrew his complaints about torture during his forthcoming appeal and during civil proceedings in which he is suing the British government. Davis said if this claim was true it was "frankly monstrous".

[...]

[Davis also said] "At the same time the government is fighting tooth and nail to use state secrecy to cover up both crimes and political embarrassments, to protect those who are the real villains of the piece, those who approved the policies in the first place." - Ian Cobain, The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/08/mi5-torture-evidence-david-davis

And this report, which ondelette has likely already seen, from the "N.Y./Region" section of the New York Times:

Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist accused of trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents in Afghanistan, repeatedly interrupted a hearing on Monday about her competency to stand trial. She declared in a series of rambling, often disjointed outbursts that she had not shot anyone and was not against the United States.

"I didn't fire any bullets," she said at one point.

[...]

While she was being detained, the indictment charges, she picked up an unsecured rifle and fired at least two shots toward a soldier who was part of an American team of F.B.I. agents and military personnel about to question her. No one was hit; another soldier returned fire, hitting Ms. Siddiqui in the torso. She has recovered from that wound.

[...]

After a court-ordered evaluation found that she was mentally unfit to stand trial, Judge Berman ordered her sent for further evaluation. If Judge Berman ultimately finds her competent, she faces a trial in the fall; if not, there is likely to be a legal fight over whether the authorities may forcibly administer medication to try to restore her to competency, her lawyer, Dawn M. Cardi, said after the hearing.

[...]

On the United States, [Siddiqui] said, "America as a nation has been framed to look bad." She added later: "I want to make peace with the United States of America. I'm not an enemy. I never was."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/nyregion/07competency.html