The Torture President
by tristero
From November, 2007: I am prepared to accept whatever risk that goes along with living in a country that doesn't ever torture its enemies. Because I know that there is no such risk, that in fact torturing people places a country at greater risk, morally and existentially, than not. Whatever the reasons [Bush] has for torturing people, he is not doing it for the good of ordinary Americans and I reject his insinuation that either my fellow Americans or myself are somehow the reason he feels he must indulge in such perversions...
What Bush and his henchmen have done, and what they are presently doing is, in fact, truly hateful, if that word has any meaning at all. But not only are Bush's actions capable of being hated by all reasonable people (and deserve to be). They are also acts which themselves are full of hate and sadism. There's another thing I hate:
Bush will go down in history as the torture president. I hate that this country ever had a president who made the torture of human beings official government policy.
Back then the issue was that Mukasey's nomination was in danger because he refused to assert that the drowning torture known as "waterboarding" was, in fact, torture.
Now we know he had good reason. If he had, he would be under legal obligation to arrest the president of the United States if he became AG.
[UPDATE: In a post that urges us neither to scapegoat Yoo or let the torture enabler off the hook, Greenwald suggests that if the US government will not investigate the torture regime, perhaps Berkeley should to determine if Yoo violated any ethical standards (of course he did, the question is how badly he violated them). It's fine with me if Berkeley wants to investigate.
And if Yoo resigns to short circuit the investigation, that's also fine with me, provided wherever else he tries to hang his shingle and peddle his trash, they also launche an investigation into his behavior and the extent of his culpability.]