The Bush Doctrine of...wait for it...Liberty

The “Bush doctrine of liberty.” It is just too early on a Sunday morning to raise the amount of outrage that phrase requires.

An LA Times story, “Torture Becomes a Matter of Definition,” features the execrable John Yoo and others saying that the US shouldn’t publicly rule out specific torture methods because that would allow future torturees to better resist interrogation. Besides administration officials, you know who else knows what techniques are used: the people they’re used on. The corollary of Yoo’s argument, therefore, is that people who have been subjected to interrogation must never be released or allowed to speak to someone like a lawyer who might tell the world. The Bush doctrine of liberty.