Monday, February 01, 2010

Bush Administration Lawyers OK On Torture Memos

A little reported bit of news was spotted as I perused news sites over the weekend. Those Bush administration lawyers wrote the memos pertaining to the use of harsh interrogation methods who were vilified and then investigated? Not guilty of anything more than perhaps "poor judgement", according to Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek.

So much for the meme that Bush allowed torture. While the findings only begrudgingly acknowledge that the 2002 memo on, say, waterboarding, are not a violation of professional obligations - as previously declared in a report from the Justice Department - it does state that they showed "poor judgement". The reviewer, David Margolis, was the one who downgraded the original declaration. Had the original findings stood, a state bar association could have administered disciplinary action.

Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor, have been on the receiving end of vile and completely politically motivated hateful op-eds and other written venues for years. Those so deranged by there hate of George W. Bush let little get in the way of spouting their own opinions as the facts.

The report is being declassified and will furnish details of how waterboarding was inserted into the torture debate. Also, the report will provide details on Yoo's insistence that the commander in chief has the wartime power to override the ban on torture by federal law.

Liberals will not be pleased with this conclusion. That may be why this story is not widely reported. Had the ruling gone the other way, well, no doubt it would have made every front page - above the fold - in the country.

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