Colin Powell's former chief of staff employs the sort of taunting epithet you'd associate with a DailyKos blogger--except in this case it comes from a very senior official in Cheney's administration. Can you in 1,000 years imagine, say, Warren Christopher's former chief of staff, Tom Donilon, referring to Al Gore like that? More evidence of how divided the Republican Party has become. And I guess the subject of torture will bring that out in people.
Meanwhile, Wilkerson makes a fine substantive point:
My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down.... [N]o torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?
Wilkerson also makes some explosive charges about torture aimed at establishing an Iraq-al Qaeda link (and he's not the only one), something I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about if true.
--Michael Crowley