Babes in TortureLand
Why do we leave it to children to demand the truth about torture and the rule of law?
On April 6, 1977, David Frost was having a particularly difficult time interviewing former President Richard Nixon. Frost’s colleague James Reston, Jr. suggested a new line of questioning, one used earlier in the trial of former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman: Were there no limits to what a president can do, even if it’s plainly illegal? Could he do anything despite the law?
“If the president does it,that means it’s not illegal,” Nixon notoriously replied, arguing, “that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution…”
While speaking recently at Stanford University, where she steadfastly defended the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation” policies, ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice revealed herself to be a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the Richard M. Nixon School of Government.
“We did not torture anyone,” Rice told the Stanford students. “The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture… And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”
From Nixon to Bush and beyond, such contentions have seemingly passed muster with large swaths of both America’s citizenry and its press. Now, however, challenges are finally emerging to such dangerous and unconstitutional ideas — albeit from some unlikely sources. Have you ever heard the saying, for example, “Out of the mouths of babes?” Biblical in origin, the phrase is most often used when truth bubbles up unexpectedly – such as when a young person says something that surprises because it shows what we expect to be an adult’s wisdom and understanding…
And so it was recently in our nation’s capital, as Secretary Rice made “her first Washington appearance since leaving office” to speak to students at the Jewish Primary Day School — only to be pressed once again on the troublesome topic of torture, just days after telling the Stanford undergraduates that the gruesome form of torture euphemistically known as waterboarding was “by definition” legal “if it was authorized by the president.”
After years of facing softballs from a doting Washington press corps, Rice must have been taken aback as she fielded still more questions about torture — from a 4th-Grader no less! As reported in the Washington Post, Rice “held forth amiably before a few dozen students about her love of Israel, travel abroad and the importance of learning languages” before opening the floor to their questions. The inquiries, developed by students with the assistance of their teachers, had not been screened in advance by Rice.
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