Nine months ago, the political world in the U.S. was in an uproar. Illinois’ former governor, Rod Blagojevich, having been caught by the FBI on wiretaps attempting to sell Barack Obama’s newly-vacant Senate seat, decided to go ahead and use his appointment power, flying in the face of the United States Senate, Illinois’ political leadership and virtually every non-follicle-centric media outlet (Yeah, I’m looking at you, Geraldo) to give former Illinois Comptroller Roland Burris a seat in the United States Senate. The country was outraged. Markos Moulitsas, of TheHill.com, wrote:
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold (D), spurred into action by the Illinois and New York debacles, introduced a constitutional amendment this week requiring special elections to fill Senate vacancies. “Those cases have simply confirmed my longstanding view that Senate appointments by state governors are an unfortunate relic of the time when state legislatures elected U.S. senators,” Feingold wrote on Daily Kos. “Nobody can represent the people in the House of Representatives without the approval of the voters. The same should be true for the Senate.”
Holder selected John Durham (pictured) as special prosecutor.
There have been a number of developments on the CIA torture/enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT according to the antiseptic neocon parlance) front, the most visible being the selection of John Durham as the special prosecutor assigned to investigate transgressions of the DoJ’s strangled legal guidelines governing interrogations. Critics immediately began to decry the decision as a partisan witch hunt, as evidence of an administration bent on exacting retribution from the GOP, and as a war on the country’s intelligence community. Dick Cheney and John McCain have both stated their opposition to an investigation on the grounds that it will harm our national security. McCain, to his credit, believes that continuing to bring American actions into the light will only serve to further foment anger within the Arab world. Cheney, however, opposes it because it would mean we couldn’t do it anymore (and you really only need to watch the first 3:10, though you can subject yourself to the full half hour if you’re feeling masochistic):
If their actions might be investigated and found to be criminal, “they’re not going to sign up for those kinds of missions.” Continue reading…
Her only claim to fame so far has been her recent forray into public relations, vocally supporting the policies implemented by her father during the early years of the Bush Administration. You can’t run for Congress on a platform made up entirely of ‘torture is okay because if works’. Yes, she was appointed to the State Department and has a law degree, but that alone is not qualification for public office. [...]
I applaud him in his efforts. There isn’t even a debate any longer over whether or not what took place was, in fact, torture. His defense now is simply that it worked. But even that is now starting to collapse on itself as people begin to question how a technique that had to be used over 200 times could be thought effective. I don’t know what flimsy defense comes next, except to adopt the same rationalizing that interrogators themselves have used, that they didn’t know it was illegal. [...]
