now…
President Bush strongly defended U.S. interrogation practices for detainees held in the war on terrorism Monday, insisting, "We do not torture."
then…
NEW HAVEN, Nov. 7 – A Yale fraternity accused by the student newspaper of burning its initiates with a brand will have its fate decided Friday by student fraternity leaders. The fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, could face the temporary closure of its house and a $1,000 fine resulting from alleged violations of rules previously passed by the Inter-Fraternity Council, which consists of Yale’s five fraternity presidents.
The charges against Delta Kappa Epsilon were made last Friday in a Yale Daily News article that accused campus fraternities of carrying on “sadistic and obscene” initiation procedures. The charge that has caused the most controversy on the Yale campus is that Delta Kappa Epsilon applied a “hot branding iron” to the small of the back of its 40 new members in ceremonies two weeks ago. A photograph showing a scab in the shape of the Greek letter Delta, approximately a half inch wide, appeared with the article.
A former president of Delta said that the branding is done with a hot coathanger. But the former president, George Bush, a Yale senior, said that the resulting wound is “only a cigarette burn.”
now…
President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.
"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."
If you read what I think now, it would seem that I always thought George W. Bush was a serial liar. But it wasn’t always true. Back when it became apparent that the War in Iraq was worse than just a bad call, when it was dawning on us all that the whole WMD thing was a hoax, Bush was being interviewed on one of the weekly news programs. The interviewer was asking about the absence of anything that remotely resembled the weapons we were supposed to be after, Bush looked at him and said, "You’ve got to understand. Saddam Hussein was a bad man!" That was the moment for me when it all changed. We went there to disarm Hussein of his weaponry. He didn’t have any. It was just a reason to go into Iraq. And we were supposed to understand that it was all fine because Saddam Hussein was a "bad man." I haven’t believed much he’s said since then. But this one is right up there. "We do not torture" was just a lie, nothing less. There’s an implied, "So what" in what he says. But that’s not the worst of it. He continues:
“We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it. And, no, I didn’t have any problem at all trying to find out what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knew.”
What does “We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it" mean? Since our asses were covered with a legal opinion, that’s all that mattered. We had been enabled to move ahead. It’s interesting to compare John Yoo and the Law school Dean arguing that Yoo didn’t enable them, he just gave an opinion, the opposite side of the coin. Bush’s comment is like the Iraq War. We had the excuse to go after WMD’s, so what if we didn’t find them. Our asses were covered. This extremely shallow view of things is mirrored by his Vice President. Laws, Treaties, the Constitution are simply things to get around, nothing else. Bush doesn’t even know to say, "I thought long and hard about the consequences of … And in the end I decided to …" Not that any of us would believe him if he said it, but he doesn’t even think of saying it. It’s just, "My ass was covered. And anyway, it’s only a cigarette burn"…
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