Comments on: Bush Doesn’t Want to Be Forbidden to Torture, Even If You Don’t Tell the Terrorists

By: WilliamOckham

WilliamOckham — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:13:27 +0000

Unless there’s more to the story, the only thing they can’t do is manage their routers. Not really a big deal until they need to reconfigure their network (e.g. add a new site). This sort of crap happens sometimes in the IT world. Geeks are often oppositional types. There’s no need to literally make a federal case out of it.

By: PraedorAtrebates

PraedorAtrebates — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:40:23 +0000

All Bush has to do to make his Democrapic lapdogs get in line is pull out his mystical-magical veto pen. He flashes it around all dramatic-like and the Dem’s eyes get all big and round and then they do whatever her Fuhrer tells them to do.

I knew the fix was in as soon as the news indicated Bush was threatening a veto (ooooooooh, scaaaaaaary!).

By: pmorlan

pmorlan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:19:23 +0000

lol

By: skdadl

skdadl — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:17:36 +0000

From now on, I call my friend pmorlan Godot.

By: pdaly

pdaly — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:57:50 +0000

That comparison is both funny and a sad comment on our times.

Ironic that the government does like secrets (in this case, passwords) kept from it, but the goverment increasingly wants its secrets kept from the public even though it is the public from whom government ostensibly derives its power.

WO, so without the root password, the guy’s boss cannot change the security settings, I guess? Anything else the root password would provide?

By: bmaz

bmaz — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:49:58 +0000

From Carrie Johnson at the WaPo. (Via Laura at War& Piece):

Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft offered the White House a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in early 2003, but top administration officials summarily rejected them in favor of installing a loyalist who would provide the legal footing needed to continue coercive interrogation techniques and broadly interpret executive power, according to two former administration officials.

In an angry phone call hours after Ashcroft’s list reached the White House, President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., quickly dismissed the candidates, all Republican lawyers with impeccable credentials, the sources said. He and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft promote John Yoo, a onetime OLC deputy who had worked closely with Gonzales and vice presidential adviser David S. Addington to draft memos supporting a controversial warrantless wiretapping plan and detainee questioning techniques.

Ashcroft’s refusal created a tense standoff and was the only time in the attorney general’s tenure that Bush was called upon to resolve a personnel dispute, the sources said.

The process led the White House team to introduce a compromise choice — Jack L. Goldsmith, a Defense Department lawyer then on leave from a teaching post at the University of Chicago Law School.

But Goldsmith’s tenure did not proceed as White House aides had expected.

Yeah, I dunno about that last sentence. Seems like it worked out pretty well for the torture and spymongering jerks if you ask me.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:39:05 +0000

That is a classic line if I ever saw one!

By: skdadl

skdadl — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:41:00 +0000

You staying or going?

By: pmorlan

pmorlan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:39:41 +0000

Guess what? Everyone is over at Firdoglake which is why only you and I seem to be posting.

By: skdadl

skdadl — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:36:07 +0000

Steve King: Everything is political, heh heh heh. Well, he sure is.

Do these guys never reflect that there is a rest of the world?