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Chris Matthews cites the Senate Armed Services Committee report to Rep. Mac Thornberry and although he admits there was a systemic failure in the prison he won't admit it came from the top and that Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are in any way connected. Thornberry like the rest of them are trying to turn this into a political issue. It's a legal issue and a question of whether or not there were war crimes committed. In Rep. Thornberry's world it's appropriate to punish the underlings but heaven forbid hold those at the top accountable for their actions.

I never thought for the life of me I'd see this many Republicans coming on the air and justifying torture. First it didn't happen. Then well okay, it happened but it was just a few bad apples. Now torture was necessary and down right patriotic if we were torturing suspected terrorists. All that other torturing that was going on...of course that had nothing to do with the policies that had us torturing the "bad guys". I've got to wonder just how stupid they really think most of the non-Sarah Palin worshiping American public is to buy this sort of double-speak.

I would also guess they're counting on no one ever watching this again.

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April 23, 2009 MSNBC Keith Olbermann

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More not so veiled threats from Republicans with their outrage over the release of the torture memos? I think Bill Bennett is confusing what President Obama did to the way Republicans do business. Slash and burn and if you're going down take as many as possible with you. I also just love the way Cooper introduced this. "We don't take sides". Well that's great Anderson. Heaven forbid one "side" might represent the truth at times and if that's the case, you should take that "side". I don't think truth is what your after when you bring in James Carville and Bill Bennett to debate each other. One corporate Democratic DLC partisan hack vs a Repubican partisan hack. Fair and balanced right?

COOPER: Now the growing political uproar over allegations of torture and enhanced interrogations, breaking down mainly, though by no means exclusively, along party and administration lines. Now, depending on which blog or op-ed page you read, the president is either poisoning the political waters by leaving the door open to investigating torture, or Dick Cheney and company are trying to bury the ugly past and get away with crimes.

We don't take sides on this program. We present you with facts and opposing views, so you can make up your own mind.

COOPER: I'm joined now by political contributors, left and right, James Carville and Bill Bennett.

James, a "Wall Street Journal" editorial today said -- and I quote -- "By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their anti-terror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret."

If laws were broken, should there be an investigation?

CARVILLE: Well, first of all, if laws were broken, of course there should be. That's the -- the job is to uphold the laws of the Constitution of the United States.

But it -- it may be that there's a way -- you know, maybe -- we certainly need to find out more about this. It might be through a commission. It might be through congressional hearings. It might be through a trial.

But I think that the public now is going to demand that we have some answers here, and the answers may be favorable to the Bush administration. They may not be favorable. But it's -- it's going to be a pursuit here. I mean, journalism's not going to leave this alone. I -- I doubt if the Congress is. And it appears that the legal system's not going to leave this alone.

COOPER: Bill, is -- by doing that, is the president injecting a poison, Bill?

(CROSSTALK)

BENNETT: Well, I think so, but let put me down a marker here. I think Barack Obama's going to regret that he did this.

He's going to regret that he changed his mind, too, because it looks less, frankly, right now like the rule of law, or a -- you know, saluting the rule of law, and more like bloodlust. The president said let bygones be bygones, we're moving forward, let's put this behind us, and then flipped.

And it looks, from all evidence, that he was pressured into this for political reasons.

Now, can there still be an inquiry that's not politically based? Yes. But just bear this in mind. When you build the gallows, be sure you know who it is you plan to hang, because, when all of this comes out, some of the people who are, you know, yelling the loudest for Dick Cheney's head or for these lawyers' heads -- and this is not going to happen -- may find themselves in trouble as well.

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Keith Olbermann offers Sean Hannity $1000 for every second he can endure waterboarding. Lawrence O'Donnell weighs in on why someone like Hannity would offer to be waterboarded in the first place.

Olbermann: You'll do it for charity? For the troops families? I'll take you up on that Sean. For every second you last, $1000. Live or on tape provided other networks cameras are there. $1000 a second Sean because this is no game. This is serious stuff. Put your money where your mouth is, and your nose. And I'll double it when you admit you feared for your life. When you admit the horrible truth. Waterboarding, a symbol of the last administration, is torture.

[....]

O'Donnell: The reason Sean Hannity thinks torture is a good idea. The reason Sean Hannity thinks it works is because it would work on him. There are two different kinds of people out there in the world. The warriors which are a very, very tiny minority, less than 1% of our population is ever going to face combat and then there's the rest of us.

I am like Sean Hannity, one of those cowards, just like Dick Cheney who has refused throughout my life to enter the military and ever subject myself to anything dangerous occupationally where I might lose a tooth. That is exactly Sean Hannity's approach to life and he has exactly the same cowardly fear that I do of combat or submitting myself to anything of the kind of risk the American military does. And so people who live where Sean Hannity lives and those safe places and the safe Cheney home where no one in the Cheney family would ever submit themselves to military service, ever submit themselves to the risk of torture. They think torture works because it would work on them.

Because they are soft. They are weak people compared to our military service people and they would crack under torture. But al Qaeda, people who have devoted their lives to destroying their enemy, the people are willing to die in their exercises, they were all willing to die on 9-11. Sean Hannity thinks torture is going to work on them because he has never, never known the kind of commitment that those people have and nothing he's done in his life measures that kind of commitment that the American military has or that our enemies have. Our enemies are more committed than Sean Hannity will ever be.

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Rachel Maddow talks to Ron Suskind about what was driving the Bush administrations requests for the "harsh interrogation methods" a.k.a. torture to be used on suspected al Qaeda terrorists. It was not to protect the country but instead to justify the invasion of Iraq.

MADDOW: This new Levin report confirms a lot of the reporting that you did for your book in 2006. Is the headline here at last that the torture goes right to the White House?

SUSKIND: Yes. Well, that‘s what I found back in the reporting back in ‘06, you know? It was directed by the president and the vice president. They were involved day to day.

The president was getting briefings. The vice president—what techniques are we using; he was asking, “Are they working, what is the yield?” This came from the very top.

And that‘s the way it filtered down as the Senate report now shows, all the way through the government. That‘s why we now have coherence, if you will, in terms of techniques, in terms of strategy, in terms of goals, and in terms of who really is driving this. It comes from the big white building.

MADDOW: You‘ve done a lot of reporting on the Bush administration‘s efforts to try to create, try to find some sort of link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda—for all the obvious political reasons in 2002 and 2003. How big of a development is it that these interrogation tactics were being used, in some cases, according to the Armed Services Committee report, these techniques were being used specifically to try to find that Iraq link?

SUSKIND: Well, it‘s fascinating. I heard some of that back when I was reporting the book, but I really couldn‘t confirm it and you need, you know, several sources confirming to put it in the book.

And what‘s fascinating here, if you run the timeline side by side, you see, really, for the first time from that report that the key thing being sent down in terms of the request by the policymakers, by the White House, is find a link between Saddam and al Qaeda so that we essentially can link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks and then march into Iraq with the anger of 9/11 behind us. That was the goal and that was being passed down as the directive.

It‘s, you know, it‘s often called the requirement inside the CIA for both agents with their sources and interrogators with their captives. “Here‘s what we‘re interested in, here‘s what we, the duly elected leaders, want to hear about. Tell us what you can find.”

What‘s fascinating, in the Senate report, is finally clear confirmation that that specific thing was driving many of the activities, and mind you, the frustration inside of the White House that was actually driving action. The quote, in fact, inside of the Senate report from a major said that as frustration built inside of the White House, that there was no link that was established—because the CIA told the White House from the very start there is no Saddam/al Qaeda link. We checked it out. We did every which way. Sorry.

The White House simply wouldn‘t take no for an answer and it went with another method. Torture was the method. “Get me a confession, I don‘t care how you do it.” And that bled all the way through the government, both on the CIA side and the Army side. It‘s extraordinary.

Mind you, Rachel, this is important. This is not about an impetus to foil an upcoming potential al Qaeda attacks. The impetus here is largely political diplomatic. The White House had a political diplomatic problem. It wanted it solved in the run-up to the war.

And mind you, and I think the data will show this—after the invasion, when it becomes clear in the summer, just a few months after in 2003, that there are no WMD in Iraq. That‘s the summer of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame—my goodness, there are no WMD. Now, the White House is being hit with a charge that they took us to war under false pretenses. That‘s when the frustration is acute.

My question, the question for investigators now: Is how many of these interrogations were driven specifically by a desire to come up with the Saddam/al Qaeda link? It‘s essentially rivers coming together.

This gets—the key issue, certainly in criminal cases: intent. What was driving action? What were they looking for? What was the real impetus? And now, I think, you have your first clear answer that affirms some of the things that we‘ve been hearing.

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From The Colbert Report April 23, 2009. Stephen has a solution for all of those angry Americans out there who aren't sure to be mad at in these tough economic times.

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From The Daily Show April 22, 2009. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney have become the Freedom Fighters for information now.

Stewart: It seems the classifiers have become the declassifies. So different from their rallying cry over the last eight years.

He follows with what is a pretty scathing rebuke of the hypocrisy that is Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. If Dick, Karl, Newt and Rush are going to be the face of the Republican party going forward I don't see how that bodes well for the future of the GOP. It should however assure that Jon Stewart has an endless supply of material.

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April 22, 2009 Comedy Central South Park

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April 22, 2009 C-SPAN. Rep. Dan Burton on the House floor using the 9-11 fear card to justify waterboarding prisoners.

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April 22, 2009 ABC NIGHTLINE

A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.

In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed.

"The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior," the Interior Ministry's statement declared.

The Minister of the Interior is also one of Sheikh Issa's brother.

The government statement said its review found "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department."

The 45-minute long tape was smuggled out of the country by Bassam Nabulsi, of Houston, Texas, a former business associate of Sheikh Issa.

Nabulsi is now suing the Sheikh in federal court in Houston, alleging he also was tortured by UAE police when he refused to turn over the videos to the Sheikh following their falling out.