The Definer

This is how you lose you soul:

Mr. Bush on Wednesday acknowledged the use of aggressive interview techniques, but only in the most general terms. “We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking,” Mr. Bush said. He said the C.I.A. had used “an alternative set of procedures’’ after it became clear that Mr. Zubaydah “had received training on how to resist interrogation.

“These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations,’’ Mr. Bush said. “The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful.’’

It’s not torture, because we say it’s not torture. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t ask oursevles. We did. And we were told by ourselves that it was cool.

Mr Bush isn’t just the decider, it turns out. He’s the definer. He’s not deterred by mere words, like “torture”, or “cruelty”, or “morality”. If those words mean don’t mean what national security requires them to mean, then god damn it he’ll change them. This is the mark of strong President.