Hire an undocumented nanny, and you are unfit to join the cabinet. Sign a memo facilitating war crimes by mis-reading the Geneva convention, or commission a memo that facilitates torture by, excuse the term, torturing the English language and the relevant judicial precedents…no problem…
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Right on!
And by the way, I read your brother’s column too – but check you out every day.
Did Gonzales perjure himself during the Confirmation Hearings?
SEN. LEAHY: So it is your testimony the president has (besides that of Feb 7, 2002) issued no other directive regarding the treatment of detainees? Thats not a trick question. I want to make sure you understand it very clearly because you are under oath. My question is meant to include a directive in any form to any government personnel regarding any category of detainee from any theater of operations and regarding any aspect of detainee treatment, including interrogation.
MR. GONZALES: Senator, I dont have any firsthand knowledge about the president giving directions regarding, say, specific techniques. That would not, in my judgmentas in the Schlesinger report, he concluded it would be sort of out of the question to expect the president would be involved in making individual
SEN. LEAHY: Im just going by your formalI mean your statement publicly that this was the only formal written directive for the president regarding treatment of detainees.
Do you have any firsthand or secondhand knowledge of any other directive?
MR. GONZALES: Sir, other than the directive by the president that were not going to engage in torture and that were going to abide by our legal obligations, Im not aware of any other directive by the president.
Well, he’d have to be aware of any other presidential directive, as he would be the one writing it! As President’s counsel, his request for the Bybee memo was for some purpose other than his own interest in the legality of interrogation techniques — it was to develop executive policy on the treatment of detainees.