It’s becoming something of a spectator sport: who’s gonna top the dumbfuckery next? It’s a good thing I’m not playing a drinking game, because I’d be suffering chronic alcohol poisoning.

I think Rep. Pete Hoekstra won today’s event:

In a tense interview on Fox News today, host Shep Smith repeatedly pressed Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) if waterboarding is torture. Hoekstra initially dodged, saying, “I don’t know if it’s torture or not.” “I’d like an answer, sir,” Smith responded. Asked a fourth time, Hoekstra finally said he believes that interrogations used in the “immediate aftermath” of 2002 — which included waterboarding — were “consistent” with the law:

Q: And waterboarding is or is not torture?

HOEKSTRA: There is a wide range of waterboarding. I’m telling you, that I know waterboarding was used, Shep. I’m not mincing words. I’m saying that I believe the techniques used in 2002, in 2003, which included waterboarding in a specific format that I’m aware of how they used it, that I believe that was consistent with U.S. law.

“A wide range of waterboarding.” What kind of permanent brain damage do you have to be suffering in order to believe that? Was he dropped on his head repeatedly as a child, or did his terminal glue-sniffing just not come out during his campaign?

Joe Scarborough came in a close second:

Yesterday FBI agents who were involved in interrogating detainees testified to Senate that these techniques didn’t work and that they were able to obtain valuable information using traditional methods. Well that apparently doesn’t sit well with Joe Scarborough considering his new line of defense – the FBI agents are “exaggerating”.

They’re exaggerating their role in interrogating suspects. They are mudding up the facts and what we see here is the FBI trying to undercut the CIA – the FBI has always hated the CIA.

So Scarborough is essentially saying that the FBI is willing to perjure themselves just because of some grudge they have against the CIA.

Torture apologists stop at nothing to defend their passion.

Former SERE instructor Malcom Nance does violence to the whole “ticking time bomb” scenario, thus showing advocates of that idea up for the raging idiots they are:

Host Rachel Maddow then asked Nance if he would use SERE techniques in the “faulty” premise of a “ticking time bomb scenario.”

MADDOW: In the case of an actual ticking time bomb scenario, which is a faulty premise because things don’t work out this way in the real world, would you do SERE, these techniques on a prisoner in that scenario? […]

NANCE: No of course not, because one, it defeats the ticking time bomb scenario, in that all the prisoner has to do is not answer the question or, better yet, the prisoner will lie. And once the prisoner lies, especially with al Qaeda members. Let me tell you something, their ideology — they have a concept within their ideology called “al-warrah el barrah” (sp) and that is absolute devotion to their god, but absolute disavowal and hatred of anything that’s not their god.

Nance added that when these techniques were used, detainees knew they were were giving “gibberish,” thus seeing “that as a victory.” “[W]hat we’ve done is we created al Qaeda SERE school for them,” Nance said.

On the feigned outrage front, Cons and their fellow travellers are outraged, outraged I tell you, that Nancy Pelosi would ever question the integrity of our nation’s spies:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently raised quite a few eyebrows today when she argued that CIA officials misled congressional leaders on interrogation techniques during Bush’s first term. Specifically, she said the briefings included “inaccurate and incomplete information.”

The usual suspects quickly lined up to express their outrage.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said today that he “totally disagrees” with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) assertion that the CIA regularly misleads Congress.

“No, on that specific point I totally disagree,” Lieberman told MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell. “Over the 20 years I’ve been here, I’ve been briefed constantly by the CIA, and I’d say they’ve told me the truth as they see it.”

Republican lawmakers were, not surprisingly, far harsher in their rhetoric. Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), for example, exclaimed, “It’s outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars.”

Sure it us. Except, well, our “terror-fighters” are liars:

Bob Graham just appeared on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show. In addition to repeating earlier reports that he was never briefed on waterboarding, Graham revealed that the first time he asked the CIA when he was briefed on torture, it claimed it had briefed him on two dates when no briefing took place.

I didn’t get Graham’s exact quotes (and the quotes below are rough approximations), but when asked to respond to Philip Zelikow’s assertion that members of Congress from both parties had been briefed on this program, Graham said that when he asked the CIA when he had been briefed on the program, the CIA gave him the dates of four briefings, two in April 2002 and two in September 2002, when they claimed they had briefed him about the program. But after Graham consulted his own records, he pointed out that on two of those dates, he had not attended any briefing. After Graham pointed this out to the CIA, they conceded their own dates were incorrect.

Yup. Liars. Unless, o’ course, you prefer to believe our vaunted terror-fighters are complete fucking idiots who don’t know how to keep records or use a calendar. Sooo… are Cons then calling our terror-fighters complete fucking idiots?

Speaking of liars, check out Darth Dick deciding to order people tortured in order to
perpetuate his lies:

This is incredible but not surprising news. Robert Windrem, who covered terrorism for NBC, reports:

*Two U.S. intelligence officers confirm that Vice President Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection. *The former chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, in charge of interrogations, tells The Daily Beast that he considered the request reprehensible. *Much of the information in the report of the 9/11 Commission was provided through more than 30 sessions of torture of detainees…read on

Read the entire story. What this report says is that the Bush administration took an active role in how torture was being used and their purposes were purely political and not to keep America safe. Richard Wolffe says the same thing to Nora on MSNBC.

Cheney and his band of inquisitors wanted to find something that could justify the Iraq war to the American people after all the lies were uncovered for us to see. And there was nothing. NO WMD’s in Iraq and no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Cheney willingly promoted the use of torture for his own political gains.

Did we really expect anything less of the man who shoots his friends in the face?

For those in the audience who lurves them some torture and tend to believe that such bombshells are just liberal hysteria, there’s Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of the Department of State, who knows a thing or two about what was going on. He absolutely annihilates Cheney on a myriad of points, and if you read nothing else on torture, you should read his piece. Here he is absolutely destroying the “ticking time bomb” argument, and showing that Cheney ordered torture:

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)

If America can’t get its shit together and prosecute these evil fucks, I sure as shit hope the Hague does it for us. Bring on the Spanish Inquisition. Anything. I don’t care who nails these fuckers just so long as they get nailed.

This nation can’t recover one iota of moral authority until these lying, conniving, torturing fucktards are rotting in prison.

Prosecutions. Now.

I’m not sure what Sen. Lindsay Graham ate for breakfast before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee’s hearings on torture, but it must have included some heaping helpings of Instant Idiot.

Here he makes the argument that the older something is, the more useful it must be:

In today’s hearing on detainee interrogations, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) attempted to defend the Bush administration’s torture program. “Let’s have both sides of the story here,” Graham declared, saying there could be evidence that torture provided “good information.” Graham then made the puzzling claim that since torture has been used for half a millenium, it “apparently” is useful:

The Vice President is suggesting that there was good information obtained, and I’d like the committee to get that information. Let’s have both sides of the story here. I mean, one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work.

Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan responded, “Because, sir, there’s a lot of people who don’t know how to interrogate, and it’s easier to hit somebody than outsmart them.”

Yes, torture techniques have been the tool of choice for dumbshit interrogators who want confessions, not truth, for a very long time now. According to Graham, this is a mark in their favor. I think Jesse Ventura should prove the usefulness of such techniques to Graham by getting him to confess to the Sharon Tate murders right alongside Dick. While he’s at it, let’s also get Graham to confess to giving Lizzie Borden’s dad forty whacks with an ax and riding his broomstick over for some hot wild monkey sex with Satan. Then we’ll ask him how well torture works.

Of course, we can’t expect much from a man who forgets that favorite right-wing shows have been debunked:

Hmm, not a great moment. While directing hostile questioning at a witness during the Senate torture hearing, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham cited an infamous ABC News report from 2007 that said a terror suspect broke under minimal waterboarding, and suggested it undercut the claim that torture didn’t work.

But Graham didn’t appear to be aware that the report has since been debunked, and that ABC itself has since corrected the record.

[snip]

When the witness pointed out that the story had been debunked, he stared into the distance without saying anything and moved right on to a new round of questioning.

I can imagine the small explosion that went off in his brain when he realized just how big a fool he’d made of himself just then. Like every determined fool, however, he plunged right into new opportunities to make himself look like a moron.

Like here, when he attempts to play the “Dems did it too!” card when he’s not in possession of it:

I’ve been meticulously tracking the erroneous claims made about whether or not Democrats got briefed on torture because:

• The known briefing schedule makes it clear that CIA broke the law requiring them to inform Congress of their actions
• Some of the arguments rely on either illiteracy or willful ignorance of the public record in their claims

But in today’s hearing Lindsey Graham makes clear why the Republicans are arguing this point so aggressively.

Now. I don’t know what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it. And I really don’t think she’s a criminal if she was told about waterboarding and did nothing. But I think it is important to understand that members of Congress, allegedly, were briefed by … about these interrogation techniques. And again, it goes back to the idea of what was the Administration trying to do. If you’re trying to commit a crime, it seems to me that’d be the last thing you’d want to do. If you had in your mind and your heart that you’re going to disregard the law, and you’re going to come up with interrogation techniques that you know to be illegal, you would not go around telling people on the other side of the aisle about it.

Ahem.

Yes.

That’s the point now, isn’t it?

Because no one in Congress was told that the CIA was going to start torturing in 2002, until it was too late. Pelosi and Goss were told, after CIA had waterboarded Abu Zubaydah 83 times, that CIA might waterboard in the future. Bob Graham was not told of waterboarding at all, according to him. Jello Jay was not at the briefing at which CIA told Pat Roberts “in considerable detail” about waterboarding. The CIA doesn’t even say Jane Harman was told about waterboarding specifically in February 2003 (though I assume she was).

The first time CIA can say for certain that any Democratic members of Congress at all were briefed on waterboarding was in July 2004, after CIA had waterboarded for what ended up being the last time, and after their own Inspector General determined they were breaking the law.

This “we wouldn’t tell Dems about it if it wasn’t legal” argument is really going to come back to haunt these schmucks. Heckuva job, Graham.

I really don’t think Cons came out of this hearing looking too good. It wasn’t just Lindsey Graham, it was the fact that there’s just no way to defend the indefensible. But Cons keep trying. And some of their religious right buddies are right there with them:

And on the flip-side, there’s Gary Bauer.

Gary Bauer, a former Republican presidential candidate affiliated with several Christian right groups over the years, said the discussion should not come down to “Would Jesus torture?”

“There are a lot of things Jesus wouldn’t do because he’s the son of God,” he said. “I can’t imagine Jesus being a Marine or a policeman or a bank president, for that matter. The more appropriate question is, ‘What is a follower of Jesus permitted to do?'”

Bauer said the answer is “it depends” — but the moral equation changes when the suspect is not a soldier captured on a battlefield but a terrorist who may have knowledge of an impending attack. He said he does not consider water-boarding — a form of interrogation that simulates drowning — to be torture.

“I think if we believe the person we have can give us information to stop thousands of Americans from being killed, it would be morally suspect to not use harsh tactics to get that information,” Bauer said.

Got that? It would be morally suspect not to think the ends justify the means, according to this prominent Christian conservative leader.

Something to keep in mind the next time the religious right is lecturing the rest of us about our moral depravity.

Someone apparently thinks the last name “Bauer” means he’s related to Jack. Believe in one fictional story, be susceptible to believing in them all, I suppose.

Lately, too many people who should know better have let themselves be distracted by questions of whether torture works or not. It’s a ridiculous question to ask of something so inhumane. It’s time we shut that argument down with some very simple truth:

Ari Melber very nicely handled the torture question today in a way I wish more”democratic strategists” would do. On MSNBC earlier with Carlos ‘n Contessa, he and Republican Joe Morton squared off over the FBI Agent’s testimony on the efficacy of torture before the Senate today:

Morton: And yet there are others who would say that the waterboarding helped. It helped provide information…

Melber: But Joe, even if we put that aside and say that might be possible, there are leaders throughout the world who would say that genocide helps security, that cancelling elections helps security, that fascism helps security. At some point here the whole issue is that we have to move beyond the framework of just saying torturing someone or killing someone worked, and be bound by the rule of law.

This is so obvious to me that I can’t understand why people don’t say it more often. If you can excuse breaking the law to use torture to keep the nation safe, you can excuse breaking the law to do anything to keep the nation safe. That nullifies the rule of law — and civilization.

That’s it. End of story. And that’s exactly why we need to prosecute the people who turned us into a nation of torturers. Now.

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As the “debate” on torture drags on and on (and on and on and on), it’s gone from merely disgusting to completely absurd. We’re seeing displays of outrage by people who are so morally corrupt that – well, it can’t be described, only demonstrated.

For instance, Cons believe that releasing photos of torture is wrong:

On April 23, the Obama administration announced it would release hundreds of photos of detainee interrogation, obeying a court order from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. Predictably, conservatives furious with the Obama administration’s attempt at greater transparency denounced the move. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) wrote to President Obama asking him not to release the photos because they could inflame potential terrorists:

The release of these old photographs of past behavior that has now clearly been prohibited will serve no public good, but will empower al-Qaeda propaganda operations, hurt our country’s image, and endanger our men and women in uniform.

[snip]

Today, Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice President, decried the move as “appalling,” saying in a Fox News interview that the decision was proof Obama was aiming to “side with the terrorists”:

CHENEY: Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and women in a very negative light. And I have heard from families of service members, from families of 9/11 victims, this question about, you know, when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really,with the terrorists?

Note, it’s just the photos they object to. The torture itself is hunky-dory. They do not subscribe to the idea that “The photos of torture aren’t the root of the problem. After all — if you don’t torture, you don’t have torture photos.” To them, it’s unthinkable we stop torturing:

In fact, Huckabee defended the utility of waterboarding within 30 seconds of agreeing with Hannity that Obama’s release of interrogation photos was “hurting our nation’s defenses.”

And Liz Cheney thinks that a thin wallpaper of inane legal memos is all it takes to magically turn toture into a-okay interrogation techniques:

Robinson: I do not think that’s the case. Torture is a war crime. It is a war crime.

Cheney: That’s right. And this wasn’t torture. Those legal memos demonstrated where the line was, and where it would become torture.

Robinson: Waterboarding was torture during the Spanish Inquisition, it was torture when Pol Pot did it, and I believe it was torture when we did it. But that —

It quickly devolves into crosstalk, and Cheney spends a lot of time filibustering with her talking points, but she never is able to effectively respond to Robinson’s chief point: Legal paperwork is not adequate cover for committing torture, one of the most heinous of all crimes.

But, of course, Cons inhabit their own reality, which isn’t the same thing as actual reality. In their reality, it isn’t torture that recruits the terrorists (despite their cries that photos of torture recruit terrorists) – it’s the lack of torture that really brings in the bombers:

As conservatives continue to rally around torture, Karl Rove last night praised Dick Cheney for his “reasoned, thoughtful series of observations” about how President Obama has made the U.S. less safe. He also conjectured that ending the practice of torture will provide al Qaeda with a great “tool” to help them recruit new terrorists:

ROVE: Taking, for example, the memoranda about the enhanced interrogation techniques and making them public has been a value to our enemy. It has served, frankly, I think, as a recruiting tool. They can now take these memoranda and go to prospective, you know, recruits and say, This is the worst that the enemy, the United States, would ever do to you, and they’ve even forsworn these things. We can help you, prepare you to deal with these things, but even the enemy is so weak they’re not going to use these techniques on you. And it’s given them a tool to make it more attractive to recruit people, and you know, this kind of thing is harmful to us over the long haul.

Um… no. But thanks for playing, Karl.

In a shining example of just how idiotic our media’s become, check out who’s got hisself a columnist gig:

You may have heard the news that the Philadelphia Inquirer has given infamous torture memo author John Yoo a contract to write a monthly column for the paper. A bunch of folks, understandably, have already registered their objections to the hire.

The Inquirer has defended the decision by arguing that Yoo is “knowledgeable” about legal subjects, which has “promoted further discourse, which is the objective of newspaper commentary.”

But there’s another dimension to the story that’s also worth noting. Yoo is using his platform for more than just writing opinion columns.

Indeed, he actually used his newspaper gig to attack his political opponents — tho
se who are pushing for a torture probe — at a time when government officials were mulling whether to investigate those who created the torture program, including him.

The Inquirer thinks it’s fine to give such an opportunity to a torture architect because, and I quote editor Harold Jackson’s email to Greg Sargent:

The Inquirer in its editorials has been a consistent voice against the torture (and we do call it torture) that occurred during the Bush administration. Just as we also consistently opposed that administration’s domestic spying program.

Somehow, they think this makes everything okay. I fail to see how.

It’s only a matter of time before Yoo’s column contains a dumbshit statement like “waterboarding isn’t torture cuz we’re not actually drowning people” or “it’s not torture because we do it to our own troops!” This is a popular argument on the right. Let’s hear (once again) from an expert in such matters:

One of the most repeated lines from conservatives in the debate over interrogations is that waterboarding is not torture because it is performed on U.S. troops as part of training. Yesterday on CNN’s Larry King Live, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura — a former Navy SEAL who has been waterboarded — poured cold water on this talking point, saying that waterboarding is in fact “drowning.” Ventura said he could waterboard Vice President Cheney and get him to admit to anything:

KING: You were a Navy SEAL.

VENTURA: That’s right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.

KING: What was it like?

VENTURA: It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

If waterboarding isn’t torture, I don’t see how Cheney could have any problem allowing Ventura to put this proposition to the test. And I’m sure he will – just as soon as Sean Hannity manages to fit his own waterboarding into his busy schedule. Right, Sean?

Sean?

Funny. He appears to have run away. Strange how they come over all cowardly when it’s time to put up or shut up, innit?