Blast from the past, “comfort” edition
by digby
I was looking through the archives for something and came across this lovely quote from George W. Bush, June 2004:
Q: Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we’ve learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that’s not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?
BUSH: Look, I’m going to say it one more time. Maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you.
We’re a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at these laws. And that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions from me to the government
.
Yeah, that was very comforting. I remember that press conference. He was as sarcastic and nasty as that comment implies. He knew we knew they were torturing and he was all for it.
I just thought I’d share that so that nobody forgets that the avuncular painter of cat pictures acted like a psychopath when he was in office.
We’re still hoping that Mark Udall takes the initiative to release the torture report. I hope he releases the whole thing, not just the executive summary that’s been redacted to death by the White House. But they have to release something.
You can sign the petition here if you’d like to add your name to the list of people calling for it.