Let's start with Scooter then

In a disturbing article in today's Washington Post we learn that Vice President Cheney has been working behind the scenes, to stop Congress from instituting a ban on torture. Although the Senate voted 90-9 to impose a ban, Cheney is still trying to convince the President and others to oppose the ban. This from the story ...

Over the past year, Vice President Cheney has waged an intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist suspects, according to defense, state, intelligence and congressional officials.

Just last week, Cheney showed up at a Republican senatorial luncheon to lobby lawmakers for a CIA exemption to an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would ban torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

I am sure all of you know that John McCain was a prisoner of war during Viet Nam. He was tortured for years and now leads the effort to stop our torture practices for two general reasons. First, he feels that torture is an ineffective method of getting good information. If someone is torturing you, he argues, you will say anything to get them to stop. Second, McCain says, it goes against the very principles of America. I would only correct him to say that it goes against the principles of the old America. It fits in perfectly with our new Red America.

But the Vice President, who got a "medical deferment" to avoid the draft during Viet Nam, disagrees. Therefore, I would suggest that if the Vice President thinks torture is an effective method of gaining information, we should start here at home. Certainly, the release of a CIA agents name poses a huge security risk. Since we do not know exactly what Scooter Libby did and when he did it, and since he is charged with lying repeatedly about it, we should have Cheney implement the torture policy with his former #1 man.

I suggest to the Vice President that he demand the immediate torture of Scooter Libby so that we may be able to determine how much information he can give us. I am guessing that Scooter would immediately "give up" The VP in which case we would have to use the Cheney torture policy on the man himself. No medical deferments this time.