Infuriated George W. Bush says, "Whatever we have done is legal!"

LA Times: 

Last year, enacting Sen. John McCain's anti-torture measure, Congress attempted to draw a clear line between acceptable and unacceptable treatment of prisoners for anyone acting in the name of the United States. Now the Bush administration wants to blur the line and possibly erase it. The administration proposes to amend the 10-year-old War Crimes Act to weaken the Geneva Convention's prohibitions against cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment. If the administration succeeds in changing the definition of cruel treatment, it would send soldiers and civilians like Passaro the wrong message about acceptable conduct.

The truth is, since 9/11, a lack of clarity compounded by a series of ambiguous administration memos effectively gave the CIA permission to abuse detainees. In March 2002, the CIA approved a set of harsh interrogation policies - including "waterboarding," which makes a person feel as if he is drowning - for use on high-level Al Qaeda suspects. And by December 2002, the CIA was reportedly operating secret detention centers where some of the harshest interrogation techniques were allegedly used on prisoners.

Washington Post:

The former administration official said the CIA "was prepared to get more aggressive and re-learn old skills, but only with explicit assurances from the top that they were doing so with the full legal authority the president could confer on them."

Critics familiar with the August 2002 memo and another, similar legal opinion given by the Defense Department's office of general counsel in March 2003 assert that government lawyers were trying to find a legal justification for actions -- torture or cruel and inhumane acts -- that are clearly illegal under U.S. and international law.

"This is painful, incorrect analysis," said Scott Norton, chairman of the international law committee of the New York City Bar Association, which has produced an extensive report on Pentagon detentions and interrogations. "A lawyer is permitted to craft all sorts of wily arguments about why a statute doesn't apply" to a defendant, he said. "But a lawyer cannot advocate committing a criminal act prospectively."

The August 2002 memo from the Justice Department concluded that laws outlawing torture do not bind Bush because of his constitutional authority to conduct a military campaign. "As Commander in Chief, the President has the constitutional authority to order interrogations of enemy combatants to gain intelligence information concerning the military plans of the enemy," said the memo, obtained by The Washington Post.

Something amazing has happened in America when the media mockingbirds and left wing gatekeepers are going after the President. Even the staunchest neoconservatives are desperately seeking life-rafts on the SS George W. Bush. PNAC Chilopoda such as Bill Kristol have been on the political seesaw for months now. They know what side their bread is buttered on but the grass is always greener on the other side of the political aisle especially when their Commander-In-Thief is swirling the bottom in the polls.

A chill goes down my spine when he says, "Everything we have done.." The interview was about Fatherland Security(Reichssicherheitshauptamt and Schutzstaffel) but the President was grilled on the secret CIA prisons and torture. I would expect that Dubya and his administration are holding much more out on the American people. The reason he says everything they have done is legal is because they changed the definition of torture.

What irritates me the most is how some in the media can justify torture by calling it "pressure". Let the CIA give them grand tour. Fly them out to Egypt and let the CIA and their boys put them under "pressure". Their views would change overnight. The talking heads are only good for spoon feeding propaganda to the masses, and if they were under any type of danger they would be dialing '911' and trying to clean the urine stains on their pants with some wet naps.

The alphabet media could educate and inform the public but they choose to pacify them with tabloid fluff during the day and let the Girls Gone Wild infomercials entertain them at night. Support your favorite "Alternative" media, we may not be as polished as ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX but we are slowly making the "Official" media take notice and come correct!

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In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects. - J. W. Fulbright
Michael Vail