AlchemyToday

Easy enough, pick the most innocuous item in the report and repeat it ad nauseam for your readers to give the impression that it accurately characterizes the alleged misdeeds in the report.  In the case of the CIA IG’s report on improper interrogation techniques, we have Michael Leeden blowing smoke:

And not just to foreign terrorists, but to friends, family, dinner guests, fellow bridge players, and even professors.  Very rarely I deliberately forced smoke into their faces, but only very rarely, and then only when I was really, really annoyed.

In my own defense, I insist that the cigars were invariably very good ones.  Before Kennedy banned the Cuban cigars, they were almost always from the island.  More recently, they’ve come from Central America and sometimes Miami.

If it can be demonstrated that the cigars in question were cheap cigars, crappy cigars, then I think the redacted interrogators should be prosecuted with vengeance.  Otherwise, they’ve got an invitation to come over for dinner and I’ll provide the cigars and limoncello.

Leeden’s parties must be a blast… if I’m going to get smoke blown into my face until I vomit, it must be top quality:

Powerline thinks that only two bad things happened, and they weren’t by one of our guys so it’s OK:

As a threshold matter, it is important to note that the allegations that have been reported in the press are just that–allegations, sometimes based on hearsay. The CIA’s Inspector General singled out two incidents for special investigation, both of which involved the same debriefer–not a trained interrogator.

Never mind that many of the incidents are described by people who participated in them or directly witnessed them.  The debriefer in question here thought threatening someone with getting shot or drilled in the head was OK because he had already participated in interrogations with CIA agents in which mock executions were used to terrify detainees.   This confirmed by numerous witnesses and participants:

And Powerline’s lying about there only being two incidents under further investigation.  There’s also, you know, beating someone to death:

Oh, and as far as torture being OK because we do it to our own guys (to teach them how to withstand torture)… apparently that wasn’te enough:

And never mind that there are whole categories of torture that are redacted here and we still know nothing about.  63 consecutive sections are entirely redacted including the 9 or 10 section headings.

Here’s K-Lo questioning Tom Ridge’s claimed concern over discussions about raising the terror threat level a few days before the Presidential election in November 2004:

I wasn’t in the room. But how can someone whose title is director of homeland security not resign if he believes the security of the homeland is being compromised in some way by the White House? How do you wait all these years before saying something?

Here’s the second paragraph of the NY Times article that she links in her post:

After Osama bin Laden released a threatening videotape four days before the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Mr. Ridge to elevate the public threat posture but he refused, according to the book. Mr. Ridge calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.

He resigned three weeks later.  I don’t know what to say.  As far as not making this public before now, there are two obvious reasons.  First, it would have completely undermined the public’s trust of Bush on national security; Ridge could be very concerned about this but unwilling to cause havoc.  More cynically, he filed it away under “memoirs” to have something to use in the press releases for his book.  My guess is that he was actually quite torn about including this information in the book … normally these sort of gotcha tidbits in memoirs are promoted several weeks ahead of publication to generate interest and orders for books.  It looks like Ridge only agreed at the last minute to publish this, so we’re finding out about it less than two weeks before the book hits the street.

Betsy McCaughey was on the Daily Show last night explaining her contention that the House health bill, HR3200 (PDF here), will lead to people being denied medical treatment against their will at the end of their life because they were forced into making living wills before that moment:

John Stewart does a decent job pointing out that, of course, the bill doesn’t actually do that. But he doesn’t recognize the main lie that McCaughey’s employing here. Here’s the relevant text of the bill:

McCaughey claims that doctors will be penalized if patients don’t adhere to their living wills, and that doctors will force patients to stick to their previous decisions and deny requests for life-sustaining care.  That’s her lie.  ”Adherence to orders for life-sustaining treatment,” refers to adherence by the health care provider, not adherence by the patient to previous plans.  If the patient is able to communicate, they can make their desires known and direct their treatment.  This will still count as adhering to the patient’s will, and doctors will still be credited for doing the right thing.

McCaughy says she’s on the side of doctors, but seems to be willing to assume that doctors are so evil that they’ll pretend they’re not hearing a patient’s call for help as they’re pulling the plug.  This section requires measurement of quality of end-of-life care based on whether doctors do what you asked them to do.  If you are able to ask them to do something else, they have to do that.  If you are unable to direct your own care, doctors will be judged on following the directions you laid out instead of the emotional (and often conflicting) pleas of your family members.  Pretty simple.