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Condi Aide: Bushies Told Me Anti-Torture Memo Was "Inconvenient"
As we noted, Philip Zelikow, a former top lawyer to Condi Rice at the State Department, yesterday wrote that the White House tried to destroy all copies of a memo he authored, which took issue with the legal opinions laid out in the infamous OLC torture memos.
Today, Zelikow appeared on MSNBC to flesh out that story. Among other things, he reveals that the Bushies said his memo was "inconvenient to have around." (Would it have been too much for Andrea Mitchell to have followed up by asking him who, exactly, said that?)
Watch:
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Josh
Zachary
"(Would it have been too much for Andrea Mitchell to have followed up by asking him who, exactly, said that?)"
Uh, she did at the end. He said he heard about it from a colleague. So his position is that he doesn't know for a fact.
April 22, 2009 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
First block of Rachel Maddow last night:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/30335366#30335366
April 22, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel Maddow did the same thing last night when she had Zelikow on. He told her that someone from the administartion came to collect his copy of his memo but she failed to ask him who this was. I like Maddow but that seems like a follow-up that shouldn't have been missed.
April 22, 2009 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zelikow would be a lot more convincing if he had kept a copy of this supposed memo.
How difficult would it have been for him to make one extra copy and put it in a secure place?
April 24, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
She did ask him...
April 22, 2009 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
She asked him who and he answered that his colleague called and said "the White House wants".....
Please watch your own videos. She did a very good interview.
April 22, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now that it is clear which way the wind is blowing, Phil decides to put himself in the best possible light.t
April 22, 2009 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing I believe wholeheartedly... If and when any of the bad guys are prosecuted, the prosecuting attorneys will seem like amateurs compared to the ones in charge if the Stevenson case... none of the evil ones will ever get anything but million dollar book deal... and of course franking priveleges for life... IMHO
April 23, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Curiouser and curiouser.
According to the Senate Intel report, Condi approved the torture program in 2002 -- even before the fig leaf memo was drafted to paper over the naked violations of the Convention against torture.
Yet her aide, Zelikow, writes his memo that shreds the fig leaf in 2005 and sends it around to the co-conspirators. http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/category/one_time_tags/the_zelikow_memo
Can anyone make sense of this?
April 23, 2009 1:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand why the Secretary of State would be involved in discussing torture--did they think torture was an instrument of foreign affairs?
April 23, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Condi Rice seems to get some sort of pass in much of the bush administrations' wrongdoings. I don't get it? She should be mentioned alongside the "Group of Evil" i.e., bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, et al, at every instance. There are no innocents from this administration & like dominoes they should fall one after the other.
Oh yah, the lawyers also.
April 23, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink