More Bush Double Talk on Waterboarding

The range of answers we've gotten from the Bush administration over the last few months is stunning. The DOJ just announced that laws already enacted make waterboarding illegal:

A senior Justice Department official says laws and other limits enacted since three terrorism suspects were waterboarded have eliminated the technique from what is now legally allowed. "The set of interrogation methods authorized for current use is narrower than before, and it does not today include waterboarding," Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, says in remarks prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee.

But wait. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Senate voted to ban waterboarding as part of an intelligence authorization bill and Bush threatened to veto it:

Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques.

So let's survey the range of responses we've heard lately:

1. Mukasey refused to say whether waterboarding was torture or not, but he did say that waterboarding was illegal now and that he could not imagine (!) the president violating the law.

2. The DOJ says that waterboarding is already illegal.

3. The Director of National Intelligence says we used waterboarding three times but we don't do it anymore. But we could do it again if we wanted to.

4. Bush says if you make waterboarding illegal, I'll veto the bill.

Mr. Orwell, call your office.

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