Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today sharply rebuffed congressional demands for details about the Justice Department’s inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, saying that providing such information would make it appear that the department was “subject to political influence.”
So stonewalling Congress makes them look all principled and aboveboard?
Several Democrats have raised questions about the propriety of having the inquiry run by the Justice Department, whose lawyers were involved in offering legal advice about the tapes, and the CIA inspector general, whose office reviewed the tapes before they were destroyed.
If you haven’t been watching MSNBC’s Dan Abrams, who comes on after Olbermann, do check out this week’s “Bush League Justice” series, which you can watch online:
Episode 1: Civil Rights
Episode 2: Signing Statements
Episode 3: Political Prosecutions
Episode 4: Alabama Outrage
Much of the information in these episodes has already been covered in this blog. Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to see the evil libruhl MSM take on the Bushies this directly.
Also at WaPo, Dan Froomkin writes,
President Bush’s repeated insistence that “we don’t torture” appeared even more transparently bogus yesterday as the White House threatened to veto a House bill that would explicitly ban a variety of abhorrent practices.
The bill would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow interrogation rules adopted by the armed forces last year.
What does that mean? As Pamela Hess writes for the Associated Press, those rules explicitly prohibit “forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees’ heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding.”
Bush is now fully owning Abu Ghraib. That, I guess, is one helpful result of flushing out what this president has done. At the time, of course, he expressed shock at the techniques exposed by the photographs at Abu Ghraib. Now he is declaring them legal and necessary.
At this point, I’m too tired of this bleep to be outraged.