Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

The sadistic absurdity of the refusal by George W. Bush and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to admit that waterboarding is torture has been exposed to the unkind spotlight of reality again, this time by the Bush Administration’s own Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell. McConnell, who along with Mukasey is given the authority by the Protect America Act to conduct massive, unsupervised operations of electronic spying against the American people, has told the New Yorker magazine that yes, by golly, if he were subjected to waterboarding, he would personally regard it as torture.

However, McConnell refused to provide an official legal opinion stating as much. That would subject lots of people in the U.S. government to criminal prosecution, he explained.

How sad that Michael McConnell’s only moral scruples are exercised to protect people who conduct techniques that he regards as torture.

How can American citizens sit so contentedly with such a person as their nation’s Spy-In-Chief?