The Banality of Bush White House Evil, By FRANK RICH

[jefferson_dem]

The Banality of Bush White House Evil
By FRANK RICH

<SNIP>

Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks.

The newly released Justice Department memos, like those before them, were not written by barely schooled misfits like England and Graner. John Yoo, Steven Bradbury and Jay Bybee graduated from the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Michigan and Brigham Young. They have passed through white-shoe law firms like Covington & Burling, and Sidley Austin.

Judge Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation “techniques” like “facial slap (insult slap)” and “insects placed in a confinement box.”

He proposed using 10 such techniques “in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.” Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it “does not, in our view, inflict ‘severe pain or suffering.’ ”

Still, it’s not Bybee’s perverted lawyering and pornographic amorality that make his memo worthy of special attention. It merits a closer look because it actually does add something new — and, even after all we’ve heard, something shocking — to the five-year-old torture narrative. When placed in full context, it’s the kind of smoking gun that might free us from the myths and denial that prevent us from reckoning with this ugly chapter in our history.

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

[opihimoimoi]

1. Bybee gatta go bye bye

[BlooInBloo]

2. Among other things, every doctor of any sort involved in the program...

Should have his or her license to practice revoked for life. With no possibility of reprieve.

[Hutzpa]

3. Ditto

which in turn should prevent them from ever speaking about Law, because they have lost the
etiquette of being a Lawyer.

[Supersedeas]

18. Gitmo was an experimental testing ground for modern day mad doctors.

[depakid]

4. From an old DU post regarding Yoo: He needs to be disbarred

WP: Scholar Stands by Earlier Writings Sanctioning Torture, Eavesdropping Sun Dec-25-05 06:56 PM

Scholar Stands by Earlier Writings Sanctioning Torture, Eavesdropping
Former Justice Official Says He Was Interpreting Law, Not Making Policy

John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the lefties. Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his ouster from the University of California at Berkeley.

Civil liberties advocates were appalled by a memo he helped draft on torture. The State Department's chief legal adviser at the time, called his analysis of the Geneva Conventions "seriously flawed." Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, in a critique of administration views espoused by Yoo, "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."

Yoo has alienated so many influential opponents that he is considered unconfirmable for a judgeship or high office, not unlike a certain conservative jurist rejected by the Senate for the Supreme Court.

"Someone said to me that I was the Robert Bork of my generation," he reported the other day.

...

"The worst thing you could do, now that people are critical of your views, is to run and hide. I agree with the work I did. I have an obligation to explain it," Yoo said from his Berkeley office. "I'm one of the few people who is willing to defend decisions I made in government."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2006659
--------

depakid (1000+ posts) Sun Dec-25-05 09:33 PM Response to Original message

9. He needs to be disbarred

This man has no morals and should be neither teaching law nor practicing as an attornery. The California bar needs to have higher standards than that. The fact that he's still there is a smack in the face to every California lawyer.

(One mistake- I assumed he was a member of the Califonia Bar- he's not. The matter is up to Pennsylvamia).

[saltpoint]

5. Note to Newt Gingrich and any other Republican considering the 2012 nom:

Mr. Rich fairthfully guards the gate and he is exceedingly well-armed.

[saltpoint]

9. There's no 'r' in "faithfully," you moron.

[Cha]

11. Give yourself a

break:)

:hi:

[saltpoint]

17. Hi, Cha. That first poster there can't spell worth a damn!

:hi:

[MannyGoldstein]

6. First, Let's Not Prosecute The Interrogators Themselves

They were "only following orders" (say that with a German accent, bitte).

Then we cannot prosecute anyone else.

It's only war crimes.

[mmonk]

7. More.....

President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

-snip-

[JamesA1102]

8. Rich helped Bush become President

by trashing Al Gore unfairly all through 2000. He enabled the evil that he's now railing against and should take responsibility for it.

[MarjorieG]

15. Was snarky about Kerry, also. I think to give an ending to his book in progress.

[Pooka Fey]

10. knr

[grantcart]

12. pornographic amorality --- exactly right

[scrappydo]

13. This article was also posted on the Huffington Post website....

I was blogging there last night until 2:15 AM when the blogs were turned off for maintenance. The posts were coming in so fast and furious it was difficult to keep up! One nutcase neocon was posting - he was getting his lumps - Rich's article had 99.9% support from the bloggers along with many, many posts with constructive support - not just one-liners.

[me b zola]

14. Excellent article

How can Holder not prosecute?

[Scurrilous]

16. K & R

:thumbsup: