by Mark Silva
Writing legal memoranda at the old Justice Department that justified the use of interrogation tactics that have come to be known, at the new Justice Department, as "torture'' may have something in common with spray-painting Air Force One, tearing up its seats or smoking in its bathroom.
Don't follow?
Come along, for the ride of Air Force One en route to Iowa today in which Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, explained who might get around to deciding if anyone did anything wrong in the production of memos at the Bush Justice Department that justified waterboarding, the simulated drowning used on a couple of captive terrorists more than 200 times, and other harsh tactics.
President Barack Obama, while maintaining that CIA operatives who carried out the interrogations should not be prosecuted, has left the question of any culpability of higher-level officials who authorized the acts to the lawyers. Might that mean appointing a special prosecutor to look into the conduct of the Bush administration, the Obama spokesman was asked today aboard Air Force One.
"Well, look,'' Gibbs said. " Let me use an example: If you go in the back of the plane, Air Force One, and spray-paint the walls and smoke in the bathroom, the president isn't going to determine whether you broke the law. A legal official is going to determine whether you broke the law. That's the determination that will be made in any instance whereby anybody knowingly breaks the law.''
Well, then, seeing as Attorney General Eric Holder - who has called water-boarding "torture'' - is a political appointee, would it be "less political'' to have a special prosecutor?
"The lawyers that are involved are plenty capable of determining whether any law has been broken,'' Gibbs said. " I want to stress that that determination is not going to be made by the president, or the vice president, or anybody that works in the White House, because that's why many, many, many, many moons ago we created a Department of Justice.''
Gibbs was asked about the same subject again - pressed on whether the president is opening the door to prosecution by saying the lawyers can decide - and came back with the same reply.
" If you spray-paint the back of this plane, if you tear up one of the seats, even though it's Air Force One, the president doesn't make a determination as to who broke the law,'' Gibbs said. " That's a legal official. The notion that the president is open to anything is -- I think misses the point.
"If somebody knowingly broke the law, that's a determination that will be ultimately made by a legal official, not by the president of the United States.''
Comments
Could someone get the Family Guy a teleprompter? Why does only the genius in chief get to have prepared in advance words fed to him?
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Could this administration get any goofier... ?
Posted by: heartburn | April 22, 2009 4:41 PM
First you say you do /
And then you don`t /
And then you say you will /
And then you won`t /
You`re undecided now /
So what are you gonna do?
A classic, Ella / Natalie / Sinatra standard, one would surely have to agree.
The base demands a scapegoat. Surely Eric Holder won’t have a problem with that. Let the inquisition begin.
Posted by: Django - N Exile somewhere in/around the 30th Parallel | April 22, 2009 5:55 PM
The WH propaganda machine pushed to release these memos for nefarious reasons. To placate the lefties, embarrass Bushies, or show the world how horrible the US has been and how Obama will now rescue our great name. With the the truth is being revealed that enhanced interrogations worked and saved American lives the Obama team is on the hot seat. Only the fringe liberals would sacrifice American lives for a few moments of unpleasantness for a terrorist. Their flip-flops and different senior WH and Cabinet members, along with Congressional Dems not on the same page, they appear as a bunch of naive, inexperienced, clowns who are endangering our security and spooking our spooks. Run for cover the Dems are after anyone who opposes their lefty agenda. And this was the great unifier.
Posted by: bubba Porter | April 22, 2009 7:32 PM
"a few moments of unpleasantness"
Please Bubba Porter, cut out the lies. Read some of the memos and reports. If they don't release the memos, you'd be whining "where's the transparency?" Now even your buddy Dick Cheney wants more information released.
"The WH propaganda machine pushed to release these memos " NO they didn't, Bubba. The timing was due to a court deadline.
Posted by: Flo | April 22, 2009 8:26 PM
I am glad to see Americans like Bubba admitting that I was right and that Torture is justifiable to protect the motherland! I ask of you, who could oppose the use of torture to protect the proletariat from capitalist running dog wreckers or from terrorist islamofascists? No one! Please, I would love to teach your government the methods we perfected at the Lubyanka. Together we can show the world the power and beauty of torture and send the bourgeois notion of human rights to the ashbin of history where it belongs. Power and terror, together rule the world!
Posted by: Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria | April 22, 2009 10:26 PM
When the CIA destroyed the video recordings of the torture, I knew we were headed for trouble.
Then while the President was out of the country someone back at the White House said no prosecutions.
Conveniently forgetting that is supposed to be Holder's line.
But you just know they did far more to the suspects than waterboarding.
I think I was the first way back on HuffPo last year to say a Truth Commission was needed.
Just table the "criminal prosecution" calculus for the time being.
Find out what really happened in a Truth Commission.
Then the decision whether and whom to prosecute can be made in a more , er, informed fashion.
Posted by: ornery | April 22, 2009 11:59 PM
My dear Flo, are you that naive? Top Secret and national security issues vs. the AClU could have gone in the courts on for years. Your money man George wanted this, so Obama caved and now the American public are on his case because he only released portions that would embarrass the Bushies and not the whole truth. Now caught with the inconsistencies, he passes the buck (remember when he said it stops with him?) to the Clinton retread, Holder. Watch him squirm until he reverses with the political winds. This latest WH goofus reminds me of a rerun of Bozo the clown. Too bad it has such serious consequences.
Posted by: bubba Porter | April 23, 2009 7:13 AM
"Bozo the clown.."
Very imaginative, BP.
Bush administration, or whatever is left of those who didn't take the rat line to Argentina or that ranch in Honduras, knows how to leak things when they think it advances their point.
Exhibit A: Valerie Plame.
So: why haven't they leaked the great intelligence they got from torturing folk?
Or at least a few of the gems?
Could it be because they don't exist?
Posted by: ornery | April 23, 2009 11:00 AM
Bubba get your head out of the Cheney sand. If you don't believe me, how about General Petraus?
In a May 2007 letter to his troops, General Petraeus said, "Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we - not our enemies - occupy the moral high ground."
Posted by: Flo | April 23, 2009 11:16 AM