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The man who convinced President George W. Bush to reinterpret the Geneva Convention's prohibitions on torture on Sunday declared that "we can never be safe in a society like ours" and terrorists will always want to attack America because they are "unhappy about U.S. foreign policy."

On Sunday, CNN's Candy Crowley invited former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to explain what might have radicalized the men who carried out last week's bombings at the Boston Marathon.

"The next attack is likely to come from someone who looks like you and I -- American citizens, someone who speaks perfect English, someone who can travel freely in this country," Gonzales remarked. "The truth of the matter is, there are some people in this country -- around the world who are very unhappy about U.S. foreign policy, and as a result of that, hostility rises, rage rises. And people want to reach out against the United States."

Crowley wondered if it was even possible to "keep America America and keep America safe."

"I think we can keep America America," Gonzales insisted. "But clearly we can accommodate both our security and we can accommodate our liberties. But let's face it, let's be realistic. In a society like ours where we enjoy so many freedoms, you know, to expect that we can be 100 percent safe, I think, is unrealistic. We are clearly safer today than we were on 9/11, we've done a lot to make America safer today."

"But we will never be safe in a society like ours."

In a 2002 memo to then-Presiden George W. Bush, Gonzales argued that the so-called War On Terror meant that the United States was not bound by "quaint" rules in the Geneva Convention that prohibit torture.

"This new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges," Gonzales wrote.

Bush eventually agreed and within weeks, military interrogators were being trained on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which a nonpartisan group recently determined were "clearly torture."

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I'm not sure why PBS and CBS News feel that the public needs to be treated to yet another fawning interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney, but maybe they're hoping to pick up some of that Fox viewership, because Charlie Rose's hour long disgrace propping this guy up is what we're usually treated to on that network.

Apparently Cheney doesn't mind the drone program and called it a "good program" -- but what bothers him about it is not what should disturb most of us, like whether it's legal, the lack of oversight, overreach by the executive branch and the fact that dropping bombs on civilians' heads is just going to create more enemies and potential blowback when people rightfully get sick of watching their friends and their family members killed.

No, Cheney doesn't care about any of that. What bothers him is that we're killing these supposed terrorists instead of torturing them as we were doing under the Bush administration.

Cheney: Obama wants to weaken U.S. role in world:

Cheney insists that Obama's worldview and foreign policy is making the U.S. "vulnerable to the future."

And while Cheney voiced support for Obama's use of drones -- calling it a "good program" -- he said the president's national security nominees reflect "choices ... based on people who won't argue with him" and in the case of Hagel, "I think he wants a Republican to be the foil ... for what he wants to do to the Defense Department, which I think is to do serious, serious damage to our military capabilities."

Turning to a controversial policy of the George W. Bush administration, Cheney defended the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, saying that officials engaged in a "very long, difficult and elaborate process" with the Justice Department to determine "where the red line is."

"And we got approval for the programs that did go, that they were quote 'not torture,'" he said, but added that ultimately the administration stopped the use of waterboarding "because there was so much flak over it."

Rose did actually ask Cheney why he won't call the program torture during the interview, but there was zero follow up to this response. You can add this interview to the mile long list of evidence that proves that anyone who claims that PBS is some "liberal" network deserves to be mocked roundly for such a ridiculous assertion.

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As Rachel Maddow reported this Wednesday, despite the Bush administration's best efforts to destroy every copy of internal memo from former State Department counselor Philip Zelikow, one copy survived and has been obtained by Wired Magazine and the national security archive at George Washington University, three years after filing a FIOA request.

Rachel delved into the politics on this, noting the hard move to the right by the Republican Party even since their nomination of John McCain who spoke out against torture during the last presidential election.

MADDOW: And, if the Republican Party were still the party of John McCain, this would open up a whole new can of political worms, because the Obama administration, remember, looked into Bush administration ordered torture and they decided not to prosecute any of it. They decided effectively that the Bush administration was operating on good faith when they ordered torture? They thought it was legal? Probably not. Actually, it turns out they had good reason to know it was not legal, so that means it was a crime. It was probably a war crime, not to put too fine a point on it.

And that is something that we are legally obligated to prosecute in this country. This reopens the whole question of the legal liability for torture that was administered by the previous administration. The Democratic Party will be split by this because the White House politically doesn't want to deal with it, even if it's wrong and even if they know it's wrong.

And the Republican Party still has to figure out who it is. Is the Republican Party still the party of John McCain, which has now the opportunity to out flank the President on a matter of principle here, where the White House knows what the right thing to do is, but they don't want to do it. Or, are the Republicans still the party of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, who think torture is okay? Gut check time.

Given the fact that it appears they're well on their way to nominating Mitt Romney and hell will be warming over before we see anyone in the GOP pushing for prosecutions of the Bush administration, I think we've already got our answer. And given the fact that the Obama administration and the DOJ have not already pushed for prosecutions on this matter, I'm not holding my breath for them to do the right thing either.

Here's Spenser Ackerman's article over at Wired on the newly released memo -- CIA Committed ‘War Crimes,’ Bush Official Says:

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