The Condi takes time away from the golf course to defend the use of torture enhanced interrogation techniques by the Bush Administration:

Here’s a partial transcript, thanks to our friends at Foreign Policy:

RICE:  The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against torture. So that’s — and by the way, I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency. That they had policy authorization subject to the Justice Department’s clearance. That’s what I did.

STUDENT:  Okay. Is waterboarding torture?

RICE:  I just said — the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture.

Setting aside the Condi’s utter disconnect from reality here (and the utter condescension — “do your homework first”), who told us that nothing violates our obligations under the Convention against Torture?  And you needed to be told it was okay to torture?  Doesn’t that imply that you had doubts?

And if not, why not?  Do you really believe the ends justify the means?  And if so, when do the ends not justify the means?  Where’s the spot on this slippery slope Condi would have us try to stop?

There are several other problems here.  First, in my reading of the torture memos (which, I want to acknowledge was a few weeks ago), there was no attempt to discuss whether the proposed techniques violated the Convention against Torture — it was about Section 2340 of the U.S. Criminal Code, which is the specific law prohibiting torture.

Second, in attempting to deny her own complicity, The Condi notes that she transmitted the findings of the Justice Department to the CIA.  That means there must be a cover memo somewhere.  Which means she’s part of the food chain.  Which means that she broke Section 2340 of the U.S. Criminal Code.

There’s been a movement for quite a while now to encourage the University of California-Berkeley to fire John Yoo, and more recently a call for the impeachment of Jay Bybee.  Isn’t it time we encourage Stanford to fire Condi as well?

BTW, kudos to these kids, who had the guts to raise questions that no mainstream journalist has bothered to ask.

Related posts

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Think Progress has started a petition campaign urging Members of Congress to consider impeaching Ninth Federal Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, who was the author of several of the Bush Administration memos released by the White House last week.  Here’s the image they’re using:

The gavel over Bybee’s head is a bit much — after all, Think Progress, you want to impeach the guy because he favored whacking other people on the head — but it’s good that they’re trying.  You can find the link to the petition here. The New York Times also has called for his impeachment:

[The] investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.

These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it.

After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

To be clear, Bybee deserves a full and fair hearing.  But it would be a travesty were Congress to take no action.  The question, I think, isn’t whether someone will take the steps necessary for the House to begin hearings.  The question is whether the right person will do so.  To put it bluntly, if it’s Dennis Kucinich or John Conyers, we can forget about Congress taking the effort seriously.

Related posts

• Torture: Something Old, Something New
• Here Come the Torture Memos: Ten Thoughts (UPDATED)
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• Torture Memos: Humor vs. Satire

President Obama has made it clear that he is uninterested in prosecuting those responsible for torture.

In at least one case, there is another option.

Jay Bybee, under whose name several of the torture memos appear, is now a federal judge on the 9th Circuit.  As Yglesias notes,

I think the case for impeaching him on the grounds of misconduct would be pretty clear. And though as Jonathan Zasloff says, he could almost certainly round up enough pro-torture votes in the Senate to avoid removal, it’s at least something folks can be put on the record about.

Lacking enough votes didn’t stop Republicans from impeaching Bill Clinton.  It shouldn’t stop Democrats from impeaching Bybee.

And frankly, were it to come to that, I think more than a few Republicans would hesitate to vote against removing someone who authorized torture.  It would take seven Republicans (or eight if Franken is not yet seated) to convict.

Lugar, Voinovich, Collins, Snowe, McCain, Specter.  That’s six.

Lindsay Graham has spoken out strongly against torture.  Orrin Hatch has as well.  Mel Martinez and Sam Brownback are retiring.  McCain alone could bring more were he to speak out as forcefully on this as he has on other torture issues.

In other words, unlike Yglesias and Zasloff, I think it’s a plausibility.

Image:  Wikipedia

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• The Growing Campaign to Impeach Jay Bybee
• Why SCOTUS Should Hear the Al-Marri Case
• What She Said
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