The good news is that we’re about to ban its use. The bad news is that we’re about to accept it as a legitimate means for foreign governments to extract information:
Now, Graham is jettisoning one of the few good provisions in his bill: its ban on the use of evidence gained through torture.
I never thought I would see the day when my country would bless the use of torture by other nations by allowing evidence obtained through torture to be used in court.
Shameful.
Hilzoy, filling in for Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly’s blog, believes the revelation that the President (allegedly) broke the law by ordering warrantless wiretaps is grounds for impeachment:
But I have a high bar, not a nonexistent one. And for a President to order violations of the law meets my criteria for impeachment. This is exactly what got Nixon in trouble: he ordered his subordinates to obstruct justice. To the extent that the two cases differ, the differences make what Bush did worse: after all, it’s not as though warrants are hard to get, or the law makes no provision for emergencies. Bush could have followed the law had he wanted to. He chose to set it aside.
Read the whole post to hear the case for impeachment. Personally, I suspect my bar for impeachment was crossed when the President decided to lie to Congress and the American people about the justification for going to war in Iraq. And when the administration authorized torture. And when members of his administration (almost certainly with his knowledge) decided to out Valerie Plame.
But actively subverting the constitution he is sworn to protect seems to be easier to prove, and pretty much subsumes all of the other grounds for impeachment in any case.
That being said, IANAL, nor a constitutional scholar, and at this point these are just allegations. So we’ll have to wait and see whether this rises to the level of an impeachable offense.
Of course, with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, I guess the point is moot until at least 2006 anyway.
And finally, the thing that gives me the most pause is this: President Cheney.
