Legal Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
by digby
CNNs William Schneider says Americans don’t want torture investigations:
Schneider:Did the Bush administration torture suspected terrorists? President Obama says they did.
Obama: Waterboarding violates our ideals and out values. I do believe that it is torture.
Schneider: Do Americans agree? Yes. 60%. So does the public favor or oppose the Bush administration’s decisions to use those procedures? They’re split. That means that some people who believe the methods were torture favor their use against suspected terrorists. Call it the Jack Bauer mentality from the TV show 24.Nearly one in five Americans believe it’s torture and it’s ok.
Some congressional Democrats are calling for an investigation.
Leahy: There’s a lot more to find out and eventually we will. I think the sooner we do, the better for our country.
Schneider: President Obama opposes prosecution of the interrogators.
Obama: For those who carrid out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided by the white house, I do not think it’s appropriate for them to be prosecuted.
Schneider: Nearly two thirds of Americans oppose a congressional investigation (57%). What if it were done by an independent panel? Still opposed.
The president is open to an investigation into those who authorized the use of torture.
Obama: With respect to those who formulated the legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that.
Schneider: A slightly smaller majority opposes an investigation of those who authorized the procedures, even by an independent panel.
The public seems to agree with President Obama:
Obama: I think that we should be looking forward and not backwards.
It is not surprising in the least that many Democrats agree with Obama and virtually all Republicans agree with President Bush — both of whom say exactly the same thing in exactly the same words: “America doesn’t torture.”
I like to think that Obama really means it, but then (with the exception of the ten percent of open sadists who think water boarding is torture and approve of Bush using it) so did Bush supporters, so it’s kind of hard to know what to think. I doubt they will do any more water boarding, but then it’s not really about water boarding, is it? There’s a whole array of immoral, illegal actions that took place which a majority of American people now believe should be swept under the rug and which our new president is asking him not to use. And like the good Bush supporters who don’t believe he authorized torture, we are supposed to believe the same of Obama. I guess it’s all we’ve got.
When asked if he thought the Bush torture regime was legal, Harry Reid said today, “legal, I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder.” There you have it.
I certainly hope that if Obama is continuing Bush’s non-torture policies, that the Republicans will be as generous with him when they take power. (I’m sure they will be, aren’t you?) At the very least we can be sure they will generously endow him with co-ownership of them.
And we’ll all be so much safer for the world believing that the United States sees torture, at worst, as some sort of misdemeanor, which any president can evoke at will.