Indignant Desert Birds

Real men (and women!) get real results

Posted on January 16th, 2009 by Punning Pundit

Apropos of the post earlier, this bit from yesterday’s confirmation hearing is breathtaking in it’s utter embrasure of reality:

Here we have a man (Eric Holder Jr) who wants to be Attorney General. He says forthrightly that “Waterboarding is torture”, and that torture is wrong. His Republican questioner (John Cornyn) tries hard to get him to admit that Holder would, under a special set of circumstances, torture information out of someone.

A few things leap out at me from this exchange: Cornyn very much doesn’t want to admit that the US is torturing people. Holder won’t accept circumlocution– torture is torture and the US– we– are using it.

Perhaps most importantly: Holder rejects the entire premise that torture can ever be the most effective tool in our information gathering arsenal. I’m very much looking forward to Tuesday…