1. The President is insulated, not at that meetings, wasn't there.

2. The President takes "full responsibility."

The result is that no one is held accountable.

Isn't taking action with the full authority of the president without informing or involving the president illegal?

Isn't it just likely with Bush's famous devotion to duty that they simply couldn't get him off his bicycle?

...took place when Dick Cheney, charged with finding the best person to run with Dubya as his vice president, finally "realized" that HE HIMSELF was to be the chosen one!

Case closed. Nothing more need be said.

The Bush administration doesn't have loose cannons, nor is Bush manipulated by his underlings as some like to think. Bush may be in over his head as the leader of a superpower but he's not an ineffective chief executive. Things happened the way Bush wanted.

It doesn't matter that Bush wasn't at the meeting deciding how many times to slap somebody, no more than it matters that he wasn't personally holding someone under water.

If anything did go differently than what he wanted, he would endorse the error rather than look like he'd lost control.

I don't expect to hear too much chatter about them as VP candidates anymore. These meeting will taint all that were involved forever. There probably won't be repercussions beyond that, but at least they're done for now.

The real crime is that this scandal was buried as an AP release occupying a 1/4 column on the bottom of the 12th page of the paper next to a full page ad.(Orlando Sentinel) In the Watergate era this would have been a 2 inch headline above the fold on the front page. Torture what torture? OK by me! Jack Bauer thinks its OK. Where is the outrage?

Thank you Salon for putting Steve in charge of WarRoom and thank you, Steve, for taking charge of WarRoom.

This is the sort of reporting I used to expect from WarRoom and appreciate that you have returned to the good fight.

Dave on the congratulations. This is more like it!

the ditto goes to David.

I read the results of a poll today that has McCain/Rice beating Obama/Clinton and Clinton/Obama in New York state.

My fear is that most people don't really care about these issues.

My vote in this presidential election will be cast for any person who succesfully initiates legal proceedings against each of the members of the Bush administration for war crimes (I will write in, if they are not on the ballot). I highly encourage everyone else to do the same. This is a great opportunity to show the world that we still have control of our democracy.

Pass on the word.

Let's have the "Principals" talk about some distasteful things that the "Leader" can remain insulated from.

Team Bush wasn't insulating Dubya from the facts. They were insulating him from responsibility. It's called "plausible deniability."

Dubya knew exactly what was going on and fully sanctioned and directed it.

The difference between what happened with Reagan and what happened with Bush is that Reagan really didn't have any idea what was going on.

Of course that was true for all eight years of his presidency.

"Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned."

Why can't the AP call it torture? It's torture? To frame it as "harsh interrogation techniques" makes it sound almost sympathetic. The right-wingers can go "Oh no, we shined a light in the terrorists' eyes! Why don't you cry about it, you liberal pussy!"

Of course, a good portion of people would say the same thing if the media rightly called it torture.

It's hard for me to get into high dudgeon about this. As far as the principals pressing DOJ to endorse their policy goes, this is completely typical of all government entities (and bureaucracies in general), regardless of ideology. In 20 years of government service, I have never seen an instance of a policy or operational arm going to Legal and saying "in general, we're looking to do 'x', please tell us what the legal bounds of this are." Moreover, I don't think very many government lawyers would cooperate with something like that. They would say "tell us exactly what you're trying to do, and we'll figure out the legal risks"

As for the "insulation" bit, here's the deal. Bush was in the loop. He knew. The principals took steps not to leave a paper trail so the Bush could later have "plausible deniability". That's standard operating procedure for ugly policies like this, covert ops, etc. Just because they say Bush didn't directly endorse torture doesn't mean we have to believe them.

Dudgeon should be reserved for the policy itself, not for the epiphenomena of bureaucracy and "protecting" the president. Of all the dishonesty that has eminated from the Bush administration, this is the least of it.

My fear is that most people don't know about these issues. You have to be a news junkie to even find them discussed.

My guess is if the story does get some traction, we'll have the trial of the killer of the pregnant Marine to contend with 24/7. Either that or there will be some young celebrity who has yet another public breakdown we can tut tut over.

Nobody is in charge. Except, all the crimes are made by Cheney/Bush, with the assistance of the ignorant people by not paying attention. A great number of Americans can't even name the VP....., but they know, that they would rather have a beer with W. This is America right now!!!!

Bush, after having been "selected" by quasi-legal, quasi-criminal processes, took an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States". This he has abysmally failed to do, although he does have an out in the first part of the oath "to the best of my Ability...", of which he appears to have none. In any case the most important decisions of his administration have been made by those who are his legal subordinates, but his de facto superiors, who realize that a ventriloquist's dummy or marionette is a useful dodge in evading accountability.

The whole lot of them, Bush, Cheney, Rice, etc., needs to be brought before Congress for summary impeachment. How much more documentation of lying, corruption, and downright evil do the American people and the Congress need before acting to excise this political cancer from our nation? If this gang of criminals is allowed to continue in public office, what does this do for the standard of performance by elected and appointed officials?