possibly noteworthy wrote:
It's interesting how none of this perspective comes through in the PBS specials or the NYT stories.

I think it came through in the pair of stories that I quoted. I think people have a bit of selective hearing about what he has to say. In general his arguement is that many of the legal structures the administration tore up should have been torn up, but in a legal way that incorporated the other branches of government, instead of simply by executive order based on an untested theory of the inherent constitutional authority of the president. Partisans are quick to quip that they tried this with the patriot act and the democrats used it against them, and so their best bet at that point was not to involve the legislature as it handed political weapons to their enemies. This perspective only makes sense if you don't think there was anything wrong with the patriot act. Ultimately you wind up in this place where conservatives are insisting that they only support working with the legislature if the legislature does exactly what they want, when they want, and how they want... frankly very much like the perspective of ancient kings and not really different from not working with the legislature. What the conservative movement is completely incapable of doing is accepting that they might not be correct about everything, which is, of course, the very reason that these kinds of unilateral changes are illegal in the first place.

RE: The Man Behind the Torture