25 January 2009

Holder and Cornyn and torture -- oh my!

Last Wednesday, some Senate Republicans channeled their energy to postpone a vote on the confirmation of Attorney General nominee Eric Holder. So it's been put off for one week. So, at this critical time, our nation is without an Attorney General.

Different Republicans have different reasons for wanting this to drag on. But the most absurd and astounding reason is that of Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Cornyn is in a tizzy over the fact that Holder stated that waterboarding is torture. Which, of course, it is!

In fact, the U.S. convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners during World War II.

If it was torture then, it's torture now. Duh.

But now an Obama nominee admits the fact that we've been torturing terror suspects, and suddenly he's the bad guy, as far as Cornyn is concerned. He is apparently afraid that, if Holder becomes the AG, the torturers might be held accountable. Heaven forbid that we should be a law-abiding nation that holds criminals accountable. So shoot the messenger. Sadly, of course, it's the logical next step after the way that the Bush administration -- with much help from Congress -- has shredded the Constitution.

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