The Wall Street Journal is making a right wing argument against investigating or charging anybody, anywhere for illegal torture. At least anyone on our side. I wish to analyze their arguments.  Anyone is free to respond if they feel I have characterized incorrectly what WSJ is actually saying.

THE PROBLEM

WSJ notes that Leon Panetta has been nominated to head the CIA and that Dennis  Blair will be the new Director of National Intelligence and that they "...will soon have to decide if they want to join the left-wing crusade to purge their agencies of anyone who had anything to do with "torture." ... at their nomination hearings they're likely to be asked to support a "truth commission" on the Bush Administration's terrorist interrogation policies. We hope they have the good sense to resist. And if they need any reason to push back, they could start by noting the Members of Congress who would be on the witness list to raise their right hands."

So the WSJ does not want us to join a left wing crusade. So that must mean that WSJ is sure that right wing crusades would never be against torture. At any rate, the way I read this, if the left-wing is against something, that something must be awfully good.

The WSJ is against any truth commission.  I take that to mean that the WSJ is against finding out the truth with regard to torture.  To me this means that WSJ thinks there is some truth out there that would be discovered through a commission and that these truths would demonstrate that there has been torture.  And that the torture would have been illegal, because if it was legal torture then there would be no problems with the truth getting out.

After all the WSJ has been around for a long time, it employs good reporters, it gets 'inside information' at times and it has some information about illegal torture.

It also seems clear that WSJ does not wish to purge or fire anyone who had anything to do with torture.  At this point it seems real clear to me that WSJ wishes to keep on the government payroll, anyone who did have anything to do with torture.

At the nomination hearings the WSJ would like the nominees to somehow challenge the Committee members to 'raise their hands' if they had anything to do with illegal torture. Now, to paraphrase Will Rogers, all I know is what I read in the 'papers' (like WSJ) and what I see on CSPAN. And I have witnesse many, many Congressional hearings and nomination hearings.  Mainly because I have not had a life for years and it gives me something to do.The witnesses are always asked to raise THEIR hands.  Not the members of the Committee.

I have also noted that some sort of deference is given to Committee Members as they ask the questions.  Sometimes a witness might ask for clarification.  That is, request that the Member either rephrase the question or elaborate upon the question a little more. The witness indicating that he or she just does not understand what information the interrogatore is trying to elicit.

Witnesses usually say things like please and thankyou at these hearings.  Sometimes they ask for a couple of minutes to consult with their attorneys.  The witness will say something like:

"If it would be alright with the Senator, I would like the opportunity to discuss this matter with my attorney to find out whether or not I could be prosecuted later on for the answer I am intending to give to the question at this particular time."

The the witness consults with the attorney.  Sometimes he or she will cry, openly weep and then answer to posit that he or she would not particularly enjoy being a witness against himself or herself.

It is a rare thing for a witness to say things like:  What the hell are you asking? or What gives you the right to ask me a question like that? or Before I answer that question I would demand that every member of this Committee who knows something about this subject to raise their hands.

Retorts like this rarely happen.  Now I assume that if a nominee appears at a hearing, he would like to get the job.  Otherwise he would skip the entire process.  So it might not be in the nominee's best interest to say things like:

A TRUTH COMMISSION, WHO ARE YOU KIDDING, YOU CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH.

The individual would never be approved for the job.

The other problem I see is that WSJ is not demanding that any lowly soldier who is now in prison for illegal torture should be released and given back his or her job.  It would only seem fair that if those who are currently employed by our government who did perpetrate illegal torture should retain their jobs and not go to prison, that those who have been convicted should receive the same treatment.