Katherine R at Obsidian Wings updates the torture-outsourcing story, and makes an excellent point: the President has said that he’s against torture, but his Administration is backing a bill that would allow the U.S. to send people abroad to be tortured.
Yet no journalist has asked the President or his spokespeople to account for the contradiction. Who wants to be first?
Or this would be a great question at the “Town Hall” debate, don’t you think?
So far, I’ve seen no attempt by anyone in Blogspace to defend the proposed legislation or the President’s position on it. I’d be happy to link to whatever is out there, if someone will point me to it. (Here’s one.)
Update Wait! It gets worse. The bill has a “court-stripping” provision to insulate it from judicial review. This is the right wing’s new favorite way to evade pesky Constitutional provisions that get in away of its latest hatred. It’s a scary, scary precedent, and one that no one who deserves the label “conservative” would be willing to establish, especially in so disgusting a cause.
Ted at Crooked Timber prints Ed Markey’s letter to George W. Bush, who may not be sure whether we can win the war on terror but is doing a good job waging war on the Constitution.
Update on the Outsourcing of Torture
The Corpus Callosum has conducted its own survey, and would like to add the following to the list of those opposed to the outsourcing of torture: