Question that Bush can't answer

[Lanya]

A Question Bush Can't Answer

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; 12:16 PM

There are a lot of questions -- about a lot of things -- that President Bush can't seem to answer.

But Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, of all people, asked Bush one of the most important ones in an interview aired last night.

This one was about torture.

Here's the transcript ; here's the video .

O'Reilly raised the issue of waterboarding, a particularly appalling technique that CIA interrogators reportedly used on terror suspects.

O'Reilly: "Is waterboarding torture?"

Bush: "I don't want to talk about techniques. But I do assure the American people that we were within the law and we don't torture. I have said all along to the American people we won't torture. But we need to be in a position where we can interrogate these people."

Then came the question I've been waiting for someone to ask.

O'Reilly: " But if the public doesn't know what torture is or is not, as defined by the Bush Administration, how can the public make a decision on whether your policy is right or wrong? " [My emphasis.]

Bush's ducking of such an important question, it seems to me, is highly newsworthy. Here's the president's response, in its entirety:

Bush: "Well, one thing is that you can rest assured we are not going to talk about the techniques we use in a public forum, no matter how hard you try, because I don't want the enemy to be able to adjust their tactics if we capture them on the battlefield.

"But what the American people need to know is we have a program in place that is able to get intelligence from these people and we have used it to stop attacks. The intelligence community believes strongly that the information we got from the detainee questioning program yielded information that made America safer, that we stopped attacks.

"Secondly, the courts. Yeah, I believe it is necessary to have military tribunals because I ultimately want these people to be tried. And it took a while to get these tribunals in place. The Supreme Court ruled that the president didn't have the authority to set up these courts on his own, that he needed to work with Congress to do so, and we did.

"What's interesting about these votes that took place in the Congress is the number of Democrats that opposed questioning people we picked up on the battlefield. And I think that's an issue that they will have to explain to the American people."

So apparently that's his answer to O'Reilly's excellent and important question: Democrats are pro-terrorist.

(And let's not even get into the fact that he misrepresented the views of Democrats, all of whom to the best of my knowledge favor questioning suspects -- just not necessarily torturing them.)
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/18/BL2006101800799_pf.html

[BT]

I get the sense that democrats have no problems questioning terrorists as long as the questioning is done via a zogby poll.

[Michael Tee]

O'REILLY asked those questions?  He probably just shortened his time in purgatory by a couple of milennia.  But that might be cancelled out by all the heart attacks he must have given his fans.

[sirs]

Good gravy, a politican non-answering a question like a politician.  What has this world come to

Seriously though, he gets no cudos from me for his non-answer, but to criticiize him for this, is pretty damn pathetic, considering nearly every other politician does precisely the same in so many areas, including this issue, GOP & DEm alike.  Perhaps I need to find that recent transcript of Rahm Emmanuel's, when he non-answered a question as to what the Dems would do about Iraq.   Quite the hoot

[Lanya]

I get the sense that democrats have no problems questioning terrorists as long as the questioning is done via a zogby poll.

_________________
Very cute.
Questioning Nazis was done without torture very effectively. And not via a zogby poll.

[Plane]

Very cute.
Questioning Nazis was done without torture very effectively. And not via a zogby poll.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][]

I didn't know that, I thought captured Natzi officers got punched up pretty often.

[BT]

I didn't know that, I thought captured Natzi officers got punched up pretty often.

Captured Nazi's were dealt with by a democrat administration. Thus their treatment was nothing more than a forerunner to tough love.

[_JS]

Captured Nazi's were dealt with by a democrat administration.

That's rather egocentric isn't it?

Some Nazis were captured by the Soviet Union and you better believe they used all kinds of torture and other mistreatments. The Soviets and other Eastern Bloc states were rather intense on making sure that no Fascists were left in any positions of authority, or just generally left at all in the new Communist states of Eastern Europe.

The Soviets also didn't care much for lengthy trials and used quite a few summary executions conducted by the Red Army.

[BT]

Some Nazis were captured by the Soviet Union and you better believe they used all kinds of torture and other mistreatments.

Certainly we are to blame for their behavior too.

[_JS]

I don't believe I ever said that, did I?

[BT]

I don't believe I ever said that, did I?

I don't believe you did. But have you ever made comments concerning graduates of the school of the america's?

[_JS]

But have you ever made comments concerning graduates of the school of the america's?

Possibly. I'm sure I've made comments about supporting the regimes in Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, and a few other spots. What does that have to do with the fact that Truman was a Democrat and that Bush won't answer a question from a right-wing bully talk show host?

[BT]

Did we not provide aid to the Soviets during WWII?

Did we publicly decry Soviet interrogation techniques of the Nazi's?

Is there much difference between support of regimes in Latin America and regimes in Eurasia?

What does that have to do with the fact that Truman was a Democrat and that Bush won't answer a question from a right-wing bully talk show host?

Not much. Threads take on a life of their own.

You'd have to ask Lanya why she introduced interrogation of Nazi's into the thread.

And yourself why you introduced the Soviets into the mix.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Juniorbush saying that he refuses to discuss waterboarding or any technique in public is just plain stupid. There is nothing that the leaders of the insurgency could do to prepare their possibly captured members against waterboarding.

 Everyone knows what it is, and there seems to be nothing anyone can do to prepare a person so that he will not feel that he is drowning when being waterboarded when he is. The fact is that a person could very easily be killed by drowning during the application of this technique. Also there is a possibility of death due to some other cause, a cardiac infarction, just to name one.

NOTHING that Juniorbush would say or not say about waterboardoing would help the enemy prepare against it.

He refuses to say that he considers waterboarding to be torture (which it most clearly is) because he has standing orders to his inquisitors to waterboard at will. He is a lair and a goon, and believes that if he is a discrete liar and goon there are probably those who will believe his dodging the question and his silly excuse for dodging it makes sense, somehow.

And I am sure that this is true.

They would be the morons who believe that 9-11 was caused by those who "hate our freedoms".

[syrmark59]

"What's interesting about these votes that took place in the Congress is the number of Democrats that opposed questioning people we picked up on the battlefield. And I think that's an issue that they will have to explain to the American people."

I kinda hope that this idiocy is revisited time and time and time again. The man is 6 years into the job and still feels free to manufacture his own reality regardless of facts.

Add this to the list as to why GOP candidates are *running away* from GWB.