Bush's push to torture, plus Paul Krugman's take

As we all know, Bush is in a frenzy to legalize methods of interrogation that have been illegal under international law. He goes on and on about "clarifying the law" and how he's not going to order American interrogators to commit illegal acts, but that's just because the law right now doesn't allow the "techniques" he supports (and orders).

It's like a situation where the law says, "Don't beat the crap out of your neighbor," but you want to keep on ripping out his fingernails and dislocating his limbs. "It's vague," you argue. "What does beating the crap out of your neighbor really mean? What if no crap actually comes out of my neighbor? Is that ok? Who can tell! I need better guidelines." So you push to change the law, either by cutting out the "beating the crap out of your neighbor" language, or by carving out an exception for ripping out fingernails and dislocating limbs. If you get your way, you're absolved and cleared for takeoff!

Paul Krugman has a few words to say about it.