Even as David Edelstein, the film critic for New York magazine, named "Zero Dark Thirty" the best movie of 2012 in a recent article, he digressed to say that it "borders on the politically and morally reprehensible," because it "makes a case for the efficacy of torture".
On the other hand, Mr Gonzales has not only defended the policy of detaining terrorism suspects indefinitely and without access to the courts (see article), but he also wrote a memo laying out a case for getting round anti-torture laws.Mr Gonzales shares a history with the president that goes back at least a decade.
When its legal memo about torture surfaced, it became clear that it expressed a political view, not a legally defensible one, and wide agreement developed among experts that the case for torture was unsupported by American or international law.
I hope my case for torture is wrong, as I would be much happier standing side by side with all the good people who oppose torture categorically.
But now, the Hersh report and the apparent corroboration from other news sources suggest the agency's already shaky case for torture may be unraveling further.
Unfortunately, the only theological case for torture that I've heard sounds less like Jesus, the suffering servant, is at the heart of moral reckoning than, what appears to be, an unwavering commitment to cost-benefit analysis.
Indeed, the same day, Frank Rich called torture "torture" in a discussion of what may one of the most crucial issues in all this: the use of torture in an effort to build a case for the invasion of Iraq.
Re "Court Dismisses a Case Asserting Torture by C.I.A".
The police are supposed to investigate a case, not to torture.
