Foreign Policy asks experts to grade President Obama’s first 100 days, while the New York Times gets the take of prominent historians.
The released torture memos continued to fuel heated debate. Slate’s John Dickerson has a torture commentary roundup and Foreign Policy has a torture timeline.
Executive Watch’s Christopher Schroeder highlights the most salient features of the memos, while Peter Shane says, as a former OLC official, they make him want to vomit. Former President Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen marshals evidence from the memos themselves to argue that the interrogation techniques foiled terrorist plots and yielded invaluable information on Al-Qaeda. Slate’s Timothy Noah points out, though, that the narrative of Bush apologists is riddled with internal contradictions. Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan speaks out to say that high-profile suspect Abu Zubaydah provided useful, reliable information only before being waterboarded. Torture opponent Greg Sargent fears that focusing on whether torture yields useful information shifts the terms of the debate away from the significant moral and strategic consequences. The New Republic’s Michael Crowley, however, says opponents should welcome the discussion since it will either repudiate the sole justification for torture or show it works in limited circumstances and is not worth the accompanying costs. After sending mixed signals, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says that an independent torture commission is not necessary and that the current inquiry by the Senate Intelligence Committee is proper and sufficient.
Tags: Weekly Web Watch
