The Misdirection

By Scott Horton

Last week the House Judiciary Committee conducted two further hearings into the formulation of Bush Administration torture policy. In the second, John Ashcroft was questioned and some significant progress was made. Ashcroft acknowledged that the White House had effectively co-opted the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and that its opinions were no longer being issued at arm’s length. While reiterating some absurd fantasies about torture (starting with the indefensible proposition that waterboarding has always been fine), he stated that it was “not hard” to rescind the original torture memorandum because it was a shoddy product.