From the transcript of his This Week interview:
"I was a big supporter of waterboarding."
Sullivan sums it up nicely - but just keep in mind that the current president has said waterboarding is torture. Torture is a war crime. It doesn't matter who's doing it, or to whom it's being done. Torture is a war crime. So OK, there have only ever been three choices here, but now they're starker than ever, since we have a clear admission.
1. Prosecute Dick Cheney under the federal war crimes statutes. If waterboarding is torture, and torture is a war crime, and the Bush Administration ordered that waterboarding be done, then Eric Holder is himself in violation of law if he doesn't investigate and prosecute.
2. Redefine waterboarding as not being torture (putting ourselves on the other side of our allies, the International Red Cross, and hundreds of years of domestic precedent), and thereby abdicate any authority we might have to prosecute our enemies for waterboarding American troops.
3. Decide that whatever standards we may want to apply to the rest of the world, they don't apply to the American government when one President or another says otherwise, so screw all y'all.
What will the Obama administration choose? Doing nothing implies either option 2 or option 3, and he's already on the record as not supporting option 2. Option 3 might make the troops safer, but does anyone want to explain how Option 3 keeps us average folks safer? Anyone?
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