Crooked Timber: The Durbin amendment :
This memo was prepared by a group of highly-educated men and women at the top of my government. They are people who doubtlessly consider themselves patriots, probably with good reason. They were willing to sell out the principles of our Constitution, one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind, in order to torture other human beings.
This knowledge has made me want to cry, out of fury and shame. I hope that the people who wrote this, and the people that authorized it, are driven from the government and disbarred. I hope that they live the rest of their lives in shame, hoping that the next person they meet doesn’t remember their names.
This is being talked about everywhere, it seems (the CT crowd pick it up again later here).
I’m having a hard time trying to make sense of this: did the US government really ask a group of lawyers to find a justification that would permit the president to order torture? Did it create a legal defense for the president to ignore internationally accepted norms of behavior? I keep thinking of a previous witch hunt and one exchange, of which this is the most memorable line, comes to mind.
Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
My guess is no, not the least bit.