Comforter-In-Chief

At a press conference Thursday attended by world leaders George W. Bush once again declined to condemn the heinous torture carried out by American soldiers, possibly with Bush's authority and approval. His failure to unambiguously condemn torture as a tool of American foreign policy is further example of his moral failing as a president and as a man.

Q Mr. President, the Justice Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that as Commander-in-Chief you have the authority to order any kind of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any time?

THE PRESIDENT: No, the authorization I issued, David, was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That's the message I gave our people.

Q Have you seen the memos?

THE PRESIDENT: I can't remember if I've seen the memo or not, but I gave those instructions.

Q Returning to the question of torture, if you knew a person was in U.S. custody and had specific information about an imminent terrorist attack that could kill hundreds or even thousands of Americans, would you authorize the use of any means necessary to get that information and to save those lives?

THE PRESIDENT: Jonathan, what I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law.

Q Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government.

The last question, which Bush did not answer, is the crux of the issue at hand. Bush claims to have authorized "that we stay within U.S. law." However legions of lawyers who work for him drafted memos indicating that relevant laws are inapplicable if the president so deems. Therefore his claim that he instructed people to follow the law degenerates into nonsense: I told people to follow the law. What is the law? It's what I say. What did I say? Follow the law.

Here's but one example a torture memo, leaked this week from the Pentagon:

In light of the President's complete authority over the conduct of war without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the President's ultimate authority in these areas...In order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign 18 USC 2340A (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority. (Section III A Part 3 a)

Did Bush formally implement the provisions outlined in this and other similar memos? We don't know for certain. However Bush's continued inability to denounce the use of the tactics which we've seen pictures of in recent weeks gives us a clue as to the answer.

We are not comforted.