Dershowitz: "I am not suggesting that Democratic candidates seek to emulate Mr. Giuliani. But they cannot ignore his tough stance on national security if they want to succeed in the 2008 election, as distinguished from selected state primaries. Marginal Democratic candidates certainly benefit from moving to the left on national security issues, but serious candidates--candidates who want to have any realistic chance of prevailing in the general election--must not allow themselves to be pushed, shoved or even nudged away from a strong commitment to national security. Consider, for example, the contentious and emotionally laden issue of the use of torture in securing preventive intelligence information about imminent acts of terrorism--the so-called 'ticking bomb' scenario. I am not now talking about the routine use of torture in interrogation of suspects or the humiliating misuse of sexual taunting that infamously occurred at Abu Ghraib. I am talking about that rare situation described by former President Clinton in an interview with National Public Radio: 'You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States or some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy knows it. Right, that's the clearest example. And you think you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full some drugs or waterboarding him or otherwise working him over."
He said Congress should draw a narrow statute "which would permit the president to make a finding in a case like I just outlined, and then that finding could be submitted even if after the fact to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." The president would have to "take personal responsibility" for authorizing torture in such an extreme situation. Sen. John McCain has also said that as president he would take responsibility for authorizing torture in that "one in a million" situation."
I agree with most of what Dershowitz sayas here except for one thing ... while endorsing responsibility and acocuntbaiity he does not deal with incompetence and malfeasance. Dershowitz goes on to endorse the Miujasey stand that as AG he could not rule on all cases of waterboarding. That may be true, even if he did the court, not the AG makes the decision. Mukasey could, however, have answered the question by stating that he felt this was an issue requiring well defined repsonsibility, esp. if there was a question of violating the law.
Put another way, he could have answered by changing the question ..."I can ot answer the question as posed, but let me tdo two things, First tlel you that I believe there are times when WB should be permitted and would welcome the responsibility, with teh President of the United States for taking responsibility for that decision.
On whose desk in the Bush White House does the buck stop?
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