Really? Give me an hour alone with you and using nothing more than the technique you insist isn't torture, I'll bet I can change your mind.

You are correct. Hillary Clinton would have made a much better president!

After weeks of Obama Obama Obama now we're on Bush torture again? What are the Dems not wanting us to focus on instead? Sotomayor? The health care mess in Congress? The cap and trade debacle? And, I'm sure, the compliant media will cooperate with the Dems as they always do.

Let's go back a ways... remember when Clinton lied? How many times did he lie about having a sexual affair and the world wanted impeachment? Five, ten, even twenty five times? Okay, so maybe he lied 100 times about sex. And congress actually debated impeachment.

So here we are with torture ...a more than obvious impeachable offense and nothing happened.

(Maybe this is because we tortured thousands in Vietnam and many of these if not most died and we did nothing about who authorized that.)

But if we just relax for a moment and recall that in the two years before we invaded Iraq, Bush and company lied to the American public, the UN and others 935 times about Iraq.

let me repeat that, - - nine hundred and thirty five times... that is the number that made the newspapers.

935 lies... and Bush and company were not called on the carpet for a grossly exaggerated already precedented event. Lying.. Remember Nixon? He lied.

I don't get it. We live in a chicken state. Are people too afraid to confront a bully? People are concerned that they might rock the boat? I suppose when Bush said, "you are either with me or against me", everyone ran for mama..."hide me".

President Bush and company lied 935 times over a period of two years and we are worried about his getting away with something that has no precedent? Of course, how else do we assure that nothing will happen!

Shame on us! The liar and his cronies, all of them should be marched directly to jail for very long, no parole, sentences.... just for lying, then we'll talk about those offenses which have no precedent.

The talk of trying to bring up charges for a president past or present, on something with no precedent is a joke on us... So let's all sit back and have a good laugh. I mean, really, what are comedians for?

Just another embarrassment on the people of what was once a fine, wonderful nation... which is now an abysmal shameful country. Thank you Bush, Thankyou Rumsfeld/Cheney, Thank you Powell/Rice, Thank you Congress, Thank you Supreme Court... Thank you the American citizen.+

Sit back and really laugh outloud... it beats the heck out of "on our knees" crying.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Then lets talk about getting things done.

. . . While I will cede the point that there was no "media" coverage of the outrage I know there WAS public outrage.

Those of us outside the "beltway" certainly were and are furious over the criminal actions taken during the Bush administration, and not just those associated with torture.

The problem is the media does not reflect our outrage.

Probably because they abandoned us during the post 9/11 years, sat by while Bush/Cheney led us into their own private war. They watched like stunned by-standers while Bush/Cheney/Rove and their thugs looted America and sent tens of thousands of our treasured men and women to their death or distruction.

Now their shame won't allow them to help us force this issue to be settled...the shame rests on their shoulders.

Dick Cheney, or any VP, according to the Constitution, has no authority to order anyone to do anything. This evil man should not have been anywhere near Washington at any time. He should be prosecuted for using authority he did not have.

Remember Watergate? Congress was obsessed with Watergate and the nation nearly fell apart. Inflation soared. Interest rates soared. The nation's business was on hold and Watergate hearings prevailed. Woodward and Bernstein did their jobs but the time congress spent on Watergate was overkill.

Let's not go through this again. If crimes were committed, let the Justice Department handle it while the president attempts to juggle the huge pile of issues on his plate.

Outrage Joan? Our citizens are outraged that they have no jobs, they are losing their homes, they can't pay college tuition for their children. What the evil Dick Cheney did and was allowed to do is a travesty but it is not new news. We have known that. Now let's have the president and congress focus on our economy and current issues of the day.

Whether that first post by a "Krauthammer" is by the Krauthammer we all know and loathe or by some Krauthammer We All Know And Loathe wannabe, it's still fun.

And reminiscent of, get this, a West Wing scenario which, as the Krauthammers of the world always seem to forget, included a little twist called "accountability."

Remember? There was this really bad Terrorist dude who was going to blow up the Golden Gate bridge, but after the plot was stopped the same bad Terrorist dude turns out to be a foreign minister of a scary-sounding Middle Eastern country who, oh wow, is scheduled to be visiting the White House. So they agonize, inside the White House, about what to do about him. And they decide they'll have him killed. And they do.

But through the whole process, none of the participants -- not the President, not Leo, not the Joint Chiefs guy -- for even one moment suggest they think it's not something they would somehow not have to go to jail for if the story got out. The story doesn't get out, but the simple and underlying fact is that the participants in the assassination plot discuss and believe that the price to pay for violating fundamental legal rules -- conviction and imprisonment -- is in the circumstances a noble and worthy consequence.

In short, Krauthammer, where's any concept of accountability in the scenarios you describe? Instead, you and yours would substitute your Ubermensch "higher and unassailable morality" to render your chosen illegalities themselves beyond even the reach of mere mortals' law itself. That is not how it works. You want to play Decider and Decide when it's OK to obey the law and when your sense of Right tells you not to? Then face the prosecution. Even "Mission Impossible" used to start with "if any of you and your IM team are caught, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions", not with "if any of you and your IM team are caught, the Administration will enact legislation retroactively immunizing your actions" or even "you will not be prosecuted because you meant well."

So all this crap about when "torture is justified" simply leaves out the second half of the actual analysis: when does that type of argument get validly raised? It is NOT at the point where you get to declare existing laws fundamentally inapplicable in advance. It is, rather and only, in those instances in which you get to beg for mercy in the "penalty phase" following the conviction. And that is how the world works in the dimension where the Rule of Law exists and is respected. Just not in your world.