The Pro-Torture Crowd's Mistake

The pro-torture people are, to my mind, making a serious mistake. To a large extent (and you saw this with the murky "what did Pelosi know" stories last week), they seem to be operating on the assumption that what is driving the rule-of-law advocates is just politics. In large measure, the traditional media (especially the New York Times and the Washington Post, along with the broadcast news guys) seem to be buying into this.

That is a bad assumption and one that betrays an inside-the Beltway mindset. If they think that that saying "Pelosi knew" and "Bill Clinton renditioned people" is going to slow down the push to investigate and clean up the torture operation, they are seriously in error.

There may be some who are indeed using the GOP support for torture as a political weapon. But they seem to be a tiny minority. Those who want to investigate the Bush Administration's flagrant disregard for the rule of law have no problem with the idea that some prominent Democrats also might be at risk for being investigated, if not prosecuted for war crimes. If it can be shown that the Clinton Administration handed over prisoners to other countries' security services with the full knowledge that those prisoners would be tortured, then those people involved in the process, especially those who approved of it, should be tried.

As far as I know, there is no statute of limitations on trying torturers or those who approved the use of torture. If that means that Bill Clinton gets put on trial for something more serious than lying about getting a blowjob from an intern, then so be it.

Dick Cheney isn't making the rounds of the talk shows to protect the legacy of the Bush Administration. He is doing that to try to save his own neck. He is, in reality, working to condemn himself. By speaking out, as he has been doing, he ensures that this issue stays int he public eye. Add to that the fact that Dick Cheney's about as popular as Lyme Disease and it is a safe bet that Cheney's pro-torture advocacy is doing more to ultimately hurt him than anything else. He is making it easier to release the evidence of the horrors of the Bush Administration.

Cheney is, in essence, building his own gallows.