The Ubiquitous Dick April 23, 2009

Raise your hand if your preferred Dick Cheney in an undisclosed location.  In the eight long years that the evil Dick ruled over the land –  secrecy was the word of the day.  There was no meeting, no ruling, no decision that the Dick felt needed to be shared with the public.  After all – he knew what was right and needed no nodding public to throw in their approval of his deeds. Now, the ubiquitous Dick is all over the airwaves.  Fox might as well give him his own show.  He is even now requesting that the information gotten through his torturous methods be released to the public. The New York Times today in an editorial on the subject suggests that Cheney’s motive lies in the old saying that the ends always justify such barbaric means.

I have been beating the drum on the torture issue for a very long time. Apparently President Obama’s decision to ‘move forward’ is not sitting well with lots of other people.  Eric Holder has lots to do as does Congress and the more information that comes out before a special prosecutor is appointed the better.

Condoleeza Rice is not coming out smelling like a rose on this matter either. ‘Rice’s role was detailed in a narrative released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It provides the most detailed timeline yet for how the CIA’s harsh interrogation program was conceived and approved at the highest levels in the Bush White House. The new timeline shows that Rice played a greater role than she admitted last fall in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.’

F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller is coming out smelling like a rose in this entire saga.  The CIA, the Dick and all of his cronies, passed over the FBI in the interrogation business and allowed the CIA to handle the whole nasty business. Read this interesting article from the NY Times Opinion page on the subject by Ali Soufan (Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005), called ‘My Tortured Decision’

–  On the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel talks with Ron Suskind about the White House ordered torture program, created before the war in Iraq began for the purpose of finding a link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, in order to justify attacking Iraq.

–  Jon Stewart nails it on the head again. Best quote is: “Apparently everyone’s not upset about the fact that we torture. They’re upset about the fact that we know about it.”

–  Constitutional Law Prof. Jonathan Turley (of George Washington University) joins David Shuster (subbing for Keith) to talk about what the Justice Dept.’s next course of action will be in pursuing accountability for the torture for the torture of U.S. detainees.

–  And then there is the Jane Harmon story. The Congresswoman from CA was caught on one of those wiretaps in an ‘oops’ moment.  She is caught saying she would try to help the accused lobbyists for some quid pro quo activity.  Oh oh.  Check out Rachel’s explanation of this convoluted story as only Rachel does it.

–  Yesterday from the Yakkers:

–  Because everyone needs a break from the torture issue: