Cheney's Waning Influence?

Euphemism Watch

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino released a statement this morning about Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's regular video conference.

"In the context of these improving political, economic, and security conditions, the President and the Prime Minister discussed the ongoing negotiations to establish a normalized bilateral relationship between Iraq and the United States. . . .

"In the area of security cooperation, the President and the Prime Minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals -- such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. The President and Prime Minister agreed that the goals would be based on continued improving conditions on the ground and not an arbitrary date for withdrawal."

What's a "general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals"? More on Monday.

Ashcroft's Testimony

Defying the conventional wisdom in Washington that he would emerge as a scourge to the White House, former attorney general John Ashcroft staunchly defended the administration's interrogation policies yesterday at a congressional hearing.

CNN reports: "The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding has served a 'valuable' purpose and does not constitute torture, former Attorney General John Ashcroft told a House committee Thursday."

Thinkprogress.org has a few excerpts.

Ashcroft: "My job, as Attorney General, was to try and elicit from the experts and the best people in the Department definitions that comported with the statues enacted by the Congress and the Constitution of the United States. And those statutes have consistently been interpreted so as to say, by the definitions that, waterboarding, as described in the CIA's request, is not torture."

In reality, waterboarding has been an archetypal form of torture since the Spanish Inquisition. And as The Washington Post editorial board wrote in October: "The interrogation technique simulates drowning and can cause excruciating mental and physical pain; it has been prosecuted in U.S. courts since the late 1800s and was regarded by every U.S. administration before this one as torture."

Lara Jakes Jordan writes for the Associated Press: "Former Attorney General John Ashcroft on Thursday disavowed the now-defunct legal reasoning used to justify harshly questioning terrorism suspects, but dug in his heels to defend White House officials. . . .

"Ashcroft was attorney general when he approved two Justice Department legal opinions in 2002 and 2003 that, essentially, approved the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods so long as they did not 'cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.' . . .

"Ashcroft agreed to withdraw both memos a few years later after his advisers said they were concerned that the legal reasoning behind them overstepped the limits of executive authority.