The key paragraph for me: "But no matter how many distinguished groups -- the International Red Cross, the U.N. High Commissioners -- say waterboarding is torture, there are responsible people who say it is not. Former President Bush, former Vice President Cheney, their staff and their supporters obviously believed that waterboarding terrorism suspects was necessary to protect the nation's security." -- definitely reminds me of Nixon's famous line "...when the president does it that means that it is not illegal". I'm actually not trying to make a point about legality here...even if we did explicitly legalize waterboarding as an interrogation technique, I'd still consider it torture. My point is that simply because the President thinks something, it doesn't make it so. - Ken Kennedy

I don't think you can carry the logic that far, Ken, because she's avoiding logic altogether. Calling a technique "necessary" in no way addresses the question of whether it is torture. One could make the claim that international law is malformed and torture can be justified by necessity. But that's not what the Bushies are claiming. She either doesn't understand this, or is purposefully trying to punt. - gnarlytrombone

The same way we want "sewage" to be called "unprocessed gray water"? We like being served little word salads which confuse and mislead us. Don't we? - George Frink

George, great phrase ("little word salads"). - Joe Bonner