Doing My Alma Mater Proud

The Banality of Bush White House Evil

Another winning column from Frank Rich. Of note:

“Judge Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation ‘techniques’ like ‘facial slap (insult slap)’ and ‘insects placed in a confinement box.’

He proposed using 10 such techniques ‘in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.’ Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it ‘does not, in our view, inflict severe pain or suffering.’”

Mr. Bybee is a Brigham Young University graduate. Also: Mormon. Mormons seem to be all over Bush’s worst, most immoral judgments. Yay for conservatives (especially religious ones) AGAIN!

UPDATE: From the Washington Post. Still. Bybee Should have stood up for what he believed was morally right. That he didn’t do so makes his impressive CV lose much of its luster.

UPDATE: The Salt Lake Tribune picked up the story on April 29. The comments are gold.