Cheney's Total Impunity

There were no questions about Bush's role in his administration's torture policy -- but there was lots of joshing around with reporters.

More tomorrow.

Gitmo Watch

Josh White writes in The Washington Post: "The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials.

"Sitting just feet from the courtroom table where he had once planned to make cases against military detainees, Air Force Col. Morris Davis instead took the witness stand to declare under oath that he felt undue pressure to hurry cases along so that the Bush administration could claim before political elections that the system was working.

"His testimony in a small, windowless room -- as a witness for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an alleged driver for Osama bin Laden -- offered a harsh insider's critique of how senior political officials have allegedly influenced the system created to try suspected terrorists outside existing military and civilian courts. . . .

"Davis also decried as unethical a decision by top military officials to allow the use of evidence obtained by coercive interrogation techniques. He said Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the top military official overseeing the commissions process, was improperly willing to use evidence derived from waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning."

Secret Law Gets a Hearing

The Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution will hold a hearing tomorrow on "Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government."

Secrecy expert Steven Aftergood, who is also one of the witnesses, writes in his blog: "'It's been nearly forty years since Professor Kenneth Davis stated in his seminal treatise on administrative law that "Secret law is an abomination",' according to a Committee announcement.

"'The upcoming hearing will examine the extent to which this abomination is gradually becoming a common state of affairs, and its effect on our democracy.'"

Bush's Middle East Trip

Matt Spetalnick writes for Reuters: "President George W. Bush will try to bolster the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process on a May 13-18 trip to the Middle East, but the White House said on Monday he is 'under no illusions' of a quick breakthrough.

"It will be Bush's second visit to Israel and neighboring Arab states since hosting a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November where Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged to try to reach a peace deal before he leaves office in January 2009.

"Negotiations between the two sides have since bogged down, deepening skepticism about the chances that Bush will succeed in the quest for Middle East peace after so many of his predecessors failed.