Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1:35:30 PM
He and Dubya do have a lot in common,
the Wash Times wryly observes. Actually, though, the boldface part most
closely reflects the thinking of yet another president — namely,
Clinton, who famously (or, rather, not famously)
endorsed coercive interrogation two years ago in ticking bomb scenarios
provided there’s some oversight mechanism like FISA review. Alan
Dershowitz had the same idea, going so far as to propose “torture warrants”
for exceptional cases. If The One does in fact load up his cabinet with
old Clinton hands like Emanuel and Lawrence Summers at Treasury, and if
it’s true that he’s made taking out Bin Laden a top priority,
some variation on the Billy Jeff plan would be an obvious way to let
him maneuver in extracting info from “difficult” subjects on Osama’s
whereabouts or other pressing matters.
That said, does anyone seriously believe he’s going to pick a fight
with the left on this, of all subjects? Dubya’s intel policies lie at
the core of the nutroots’s Bushitler derangement; The One’s de facto
ratification of warrantless wiretapping in his vote for telecom
immunity was the one sin for which they really hammered him
during the campaign. He needs his base early on, especially if things
get hairy with the economy and/or Iran, and this would be the surest
way to alienate them. I think Gabe’s right,
that we’ll soon be told it’s a case of an “overzealous” aide having
spoken “inartfully” about Obama’s plans and that he fully intends to
make the CIA a waterboard-free zone — which it’s been since 2003, you may recall, and which it was before 2003 except in three cases.