White House memo shifts abuse inquiry’s focus

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/

(snip)

Newsweek reports that, as a way to prevent a repeat of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, “Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods.”

Within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales reportedly wrote Bush a memo about the terrorism fight and prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Conventions.

“In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions,” Newsweek reports in its May 24 issue, quoting an excerpt from the Gonzales memo.

“It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war," Newsweek reports. “In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers —and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places.”

(more)

They are gearing up, as we speak. A bombshell is about to hit the White House on Monday. The New Yorker is about to pubish Sy Hersh's article which will leave no doubt about "how far up this reeking mess goes.

They are reviewing their options. Denial? Pretend to be shocked? Full frontal assault on Mr. Hersh? Should they bombard the TV circuits and appear on every talk show including Oprah?

Is this the time to throw Danger Dude Don overboard? Either way, this tidal wave is going to hit SS Bush broadside. Maybe they should all show up at the Abu Ghraib prison and try to do what Rumsfeld did.

They are trying to decide what to do. All eyes are focused on the fuse which is burning.

Stayed at the White House this weekend. You know they are in full damage control/paper shredding mode when Bush* misses a chance to vacation.

"...this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions"

quaint?

QUAINT!?!?!

Impeach the whole lot of them...

it is not up to him to arbitrarily change the terms of the Geneva Conventions due to "quaintness", the US is but one country that was a signatory to the Conventions and it would have to be a majority of countries sign off on the "change" for this to have any basis in legal terms. This is nuts!!!

Before he was the Little Turd from Crawford, the drunken cokewhore from Midland got his sorry pimply arse in a whole lotta mess for drunk driving. Gonzalez helped Chimpy get his new driver's license and that was that. Today G sits at the right hand of the Chimperror.

http://blogd.com/bushrecord.html

The solution: Chimpeachment.

I'm really up to here with Gonzales and his enabling opinions.

My guess is someone from the State Department, because they say Powell objected to the new "rules."

.. as I said before and got blasted for it.. he's calling his shots with great care...

And from what TPM says, it's high level. Makes me feel a bit better about someone I felt highly of before this nightmare.

I've been quite unpatiently waiting for some disgruntled staffers to start leaking some GOOD stuff!

I'm sure there are at least some decent people working in hmmm, trusted positions, that aren't happy.

Go to it! We're all here waiting!!!

Democrats were going to have real problems keeping Alberto Gonzales off the Supreme Court.

NOT ANY MORE. He won't be able to be appointed dog catcher now.

that they were about to commit high crimes.

Because they had said Geneva Convention did not apply to Taliban or al Qaeda because they were not a nation...

:scared:

...he can claim the memo wasn't read to him correctly.