Shorter Bush

Yeah, we torture, what are you gonna do about it?

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisors discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And, yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

[snip]

In his interview with ABC News, Bush said the ABC report about the Principals' involvement was not so "startling."

As emptywheel notes, this is no different from Fourthbranch Cheney telling Martha Raddatz "So" when she mentioned that 2/3 of Americans disagree with fighting in Iraq. The utter contempt from this Administration, for the opinion of Americans or the law, comes from a belief that they will never be held accountable for their crimes. And it's a well-earned belief, borne from the experience of a lapdog Congress, Republican and Democrat, that has never bothered to so much as lightly challenge the President and his cadre on these issues. It's taken this long for John Conyers to hold a hearing. And in 2006, the Military Commissions Act essentially gave them immunity from US prosecution. Of course that wouldn't affect the international courts.

We're going to have to struggle just to get all the relevant information. The White House will throw up stonewalls and barriers and the media is too busy talking about pizza and orange juice to give a damn. There's a Pentagon review of the FBI's involvement in interrogations that has been delayed because they're too busy redacting all of it.


This is OUR problem. All of us, actually. We enabled this and we consented to this. We thought that we could just win an election and move on. We don't even want to think about this guy occupying the White House. But he's there. And he's a war criminal. An entire branch of the government is populated with them.

This is a spot that won't come out.