I think it's a matter of interpretation

While I want to see an investigation into this, particularly with admissions by Bush officials that treatment of detainees met the definition of torture, preferably by a bipartisan panel, I don't think this exchange (From Larry King) is necessarily the smoking gun that Andrew Sullivan does:

KING: So there's nothing you've done in the area of treatment of prisoners that causes you any kind of pause?

G. BUSH: No. No. Everything we did was -- you know, it had legal -- legal opinions behind it. Look, you're sitting there, you've captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He's the guy that ordered the September the 11th attacks. And we want to know what he knows in order to protect the United States of America. And I got legal opinions that said whatever we're going to do is legal. And my job is to protect you, Larry. And I've given it my all. I've given it my all.

I think there's a question of interpretation here. In my mind there are two ways to interpret what he's saying. One way is the way Andrew Sullivan does, that W. asked for justification to allow him to do what he wanted to do. The other way to look at it is that W. stated he asked if he COULD do what he wanted to do. I can't say without more context, particularly with tone or investigation, which position is more correct.

If only...

United States intelligence indicates that Al Qaeda is has rebuilt to an operating capability it has not had since just before the 9-11 attacks. The intelligence report says that Al Qaeda has been gathering strength along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

It's tragic. If only there was some way we could have had more forces available to fight this war on terror. If only we could take several hundred thousand soldiers from one nation and use them to fight a war declared by our Commander-in-Chief.

But, we fight with the army we have, not the army we wish we had, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld. Of course, that seems somehow less effective a defense when the army we had was taken away from our total strength to fight in a war that needn't be fought at the time. A war that now has the administration referring to every act of insurrection against our "liberating" forces as Al Qaeda - which, incidentally, is the organization now as strong as it was in 2001, according to our own Department of Defense.

Fortunately, Al Qaeda's days are numbered. We were told two years ago that the insurrection was in its last throes, so they should be throwing in the towel, soon. We just have to be patient, and not set any arbitrary dates for defeat. Then we can finish what we started in Afghanistan, and then Osama Bin Laden better watch out!

A tale of two hypotheses

The first one comes from a while back, when the President insisted that he did not need a Warrant to listen in on the telephone conversations of United States Citizens, despite Supreme Court rulings otherwise, the Fourth Amendment, and an unquestionably reasonable alternative to his program (the FISA courts which have a 99.96% Warrant Approval rate and are available post facto). The president's position was that this was a necessary tool in the war against terror and that it's not unconstitutional as he understands the Constitution, and besides, if you have nothing to hide, then why the concern if someone is listening, but they won't be listening anyway, because the NSA follows strict guidelines, but we can't tell you what those are because it would help the Enemy (you know, Terror, which is not an entity, but a theory and therefore the War on Terror could conceivably never end). i can't begin to tell you how many people (all Bush apologists) who argued that this is a minor inconvenience - yes, facially violating the Fourth Amendment is a "minor inconvenience" - and I need to be "rational."

Now, these same people are defending Alberto Gonzalez and the administration in defending him against requests to go up before Congress pursuant to a subpoena to testify as to the involvement regarding the firing of 8 US Attorneys for, what the document dumps have illustrated, appear to be partisan reasons (i.e. they weren't "loyal bushies"). The president has gone so far as to say that he has proposed "reasonable" alternatives to testifying under oath, which is, talking off the record, and that the information Gonzalez et al. possess is protected under "executive privilege." This is a separation of powers issue, and there is certainly an issue to consider as to whether or not this is something that could be protected by executive privilege. I would like to limit executive privilege, and I fear that the administration's attempts to expand it would impermissibly extend the power of the executive branch to such point that there may no longer be co-equal branches in government, which is, in my estimation, exactly what this president wants - expansion of Presidential powers under a Unitary Executive Theory. For those Republicans who support this concept, I ask you, are these the keys you'd be willing to hand Hillary should she win in '08? That scares me almost as much as Bush operating under this theory, but I digress. The point is that in this case, the President has essentially been asked - "if you have nothing to hide, then why do you resist these people going under oath to testify?" One idea, as John Dean, the author of the link above says: "[Y]ou show me a White House aide who does not want his conversations and advice to the president revealed, and I will show you someone who should not be talking with or advising the president."

Anyway, here's the contrast - the first problem is a Constitutional issue - the administration violated the Fourth Amendment - the rights preserved for the protection of the People from the overreaching of the Government. The second one is a personal issue. Nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is there any mention of "executive privilege." The concept, such as it exists, is a creature of the Administrations past (Nixon and Clinton relied on this concept), and any reach it does have is limited and should remain limited - lest we become a nation of subjects and no longer a nation of the Free.

Diplomacy inaction

I've written about North Korea once or twice on my blog. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The good folks at the Gun Toting Liberal have a collection of links regarding the recent agreement reached in the six-nation talks regarding North Korea's nuclear program, and a quick rundown on why it's ok to negotiate with Asians but not Persians.

I don't have time to get into detail on any of this, but suffice it to say, I think negotiating with the Chonger and North Korea to get them to agree to not do what they were supposed to not be doing in the first place is just fueling the fire of their regime (and this is a regime, if ever there was one).

Anyway, if you have a minute, click on some of the links above and see what the good folks have to say. And if you want to know what I think, you have over a dozen links above, as well.