fall football to me.

" 1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
('when the going gets tough...')

2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
(a defensive line)

2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.

(The first # 2 and 'what play are they going to call?')

3. Something causing severe pain or anguish."
('What's my lady going to think of me?')

That's how people can waffle.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

And some people say "I'm starving" but they don't have stick legs and a swollen belly, and some people say "I got murdered in that deal" yet here they are, still alive and telling you about it.

I can't control what fools think. It's work enough staying on top of my own thoughts.

is to stay "on top of" what is in front of you. It matters what the administration is doing; not whether you call it 'torture.' They have not revealed what they are doing for strategic reasons, but they have assured the world that it is "tough but not torture." (from an NPR report Friday.)

You don't know until you know what they are doing. Find out what they are doing and condemn it piece by piece. Don't get involved in whether it is, by some definition, torture or not.

Sticking a guy's head in a toilet, well, for how long, etc., is pretty tough stuff, irrespective of what you call it.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

"Line in the sand" stuff.

I did it with "liberal", and now the word is back in polite society. I did it with "mercenary" and now the word is back where it belongs, in the mainstream as a descriptor of an ancient activity.

I wasn't responsible for the survival of either, but I can say I was no collaborator.

And I know precisely what they are doing and precisely why it is torture.

You want to see exactly why it works to do that, Maub?

Watch it all the way through.

Tapdancing on the head of a pin. "The American people realize that some information is better off kept [secret]...."

Poor fuzzy-headed me. Bush Good. Terrahists Bad. UAH!

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

parsing and dancing and stammering and lost. That may have been the worst press conference she's ever been through.

And I hope to God it's not the worst she ever will.

When your moral compass is so grotesquely deformed that you can't tell right from wrong by yourself without kicking the ball elsewhere - when you are so weak and stupid as to let yourself get put into the position of parsing and defending and enabling and apologizing for shit like this - then fuck you, you're burned meat and you merit the best preview of hell on earth we can provide as much as any human being that's ever strode the groaning affronted crust of this planet has.

You let humanity down when you didn't say "not in my name", Dana fucking Perino - and that's all you needed to say. Better was expected of you.

Choke on it.

on NPR and listened to the whole thing just now. She did not get away with anything. The reporters had her cornered, multiple times, and it is clear that the government is refusing to give a policy narrower than "we do not torture."

Thus, the way it explains its position is meaningless. It is also refusing for you to see the instant methods, so you cannot tell what its policy is.

This would never hold up in a court of law.

The bottom line is that you won't find out what they're doing until the Democrats insist on the proper memoranda(the discovery which is their due).

In the meantime you can properly condemn the administration for hiding what it is doing and the Dems for complicity, if they don't get the info to which they are entitled.

But whether you want to call it torture should be the last of your worries; call it whatever you like; if it is unacceptable to treat prisoners this way, then say so.

Now as to this:

"I did it with "liberal", and now the word is back in polite society. I did it with "mercenary" and now the word is back where it belongs, in the mainstream as a descriptor of an ancient activity."

What are you talking about here?

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

they shook this one out of her -

"I am not saying that reasonable people couldn't look at something and disagree, um, when it comes to legal opinions. But the legal opinion of the United States is that we do not torture." [00:18]

- suggesting of course that she's acknowledging reasonable people could look at what they are doing and conclude that it is torture.

Which naturally we all know already; naturally it is not only crystal clear that a reasonable person could look at, say, waterboarding and call it torture, it's clear as crystal that few reasonable - or even sane - persons watching waterboarding would ever conclude otherwise.

I like that one. It won't stand up in court by itself as a full admission, but from the defendant's own lips (in her role as the Mouth Of Sauron) itself? Not so good.

"One of the reasons these things are secret is because, um, they need to be".

What a fascinating slip, Dana. Reallllllly, do tell. What are the reasons that remain once you remove "they need to be"?

You bloody know what those other reasons are, don't you? That's what the secrecy is really about - retroactive CYA with stakes as high as potential execution on the line and no choice now but to lower your head, hunch your shoulders and double down.

they did not need to get. What you got was a stone-cold evader in a pretty blonde hairdo. Told the whole tale.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

Interrogation methods are legal, he says amid controversy over Justice Department memos sanctioning disputed techniques such as simulated drowning.

By Greg Miller and Richard B. Schmitt, LAT, October 6

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Friday defended the CIA's harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, saying its methods do not constitute torture and are necessary to protect America from attack.

But Bush's declaration that the United States "does not torture people" did little to dampen the fallout from fresh evidence that his administration has used secret legal memos to sanction tactics that stretch, if not circumvent, the law.

The president's comments came amid disclosures this week of classified opinions issued by the Justice Department in 2005 that endorsed the legality of an array of interrogation tactics, ranging from sleep deprivation to simulated drowning.

Bush's decision to comment again on what once was among the most highly classified U.S. intelligence programs underscores the political peril surrounding the issue for the White House, which has had to retreat from earlier, aggressive assertions of executive power.

It also reflects the extent to which the debate over tactics in the war on terrorism remains unresolved, six years after the Sept. 11 attacks. The limits on CIA interrogators have been particularly fluid, shifting repeatedly under a succession of legal opinions, court rulings and executive orders.

In a brief appearance at the White House, Bush stressed the legality of the CIA program -- even while making the case for continued use of coercive methods.

"We stick to U.S. law and our international obligations," Bush said. But when the United States locates a terrorism suspect, he added: "You bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them -- because the American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."

The president's comments were met with outrage from key Democrats in Congress.
More

...of "delegation" is W's "return on success".

Our goal is to win.
Our tactics are to win.
So your orders are to win or die trying!

Wow. A Harvard MBA in action.

- eom