It would be a trap if the "journalists" covering the story were infact unaware of difference. But I'm pretty sure Mike Allen can read, and can understand the difference. It's almost as if these memos come with instructions in invisible ink , saying-- "crop here, and link there".

I wrote to Mike Allen and he wrote back. Here's my question verbatim to him:

Below is a comment submitted via the Web site:

Hello Mr. Allen. I'm an occasional reader of Politico. I'm liberal and am still seeing if Politico is unbiased, because I suspect it's conservative. (maybe proof that it isn't biased is the fact that I'm not sure). Why are you reporting that Cheney said the CIA documents show that harsh interro... torture, produced the bulk of intelligence. Cheney didn't say that (he said the suspects provided the intelligence, not the techniques, and the suspects were questioned by a variety of means, not just torture). Neither does the CIA report. Why are you making that up?

Here's Mike Allen's (willfully ignorant? just plain stupid? clueless? misleading?) response, verbatim:

Mike Allen to me
show details 1:54 PM (1 hour ago)
“The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda."

So he sends me the full quote from Cheney like he should have on his site, but seems to be giving me the message that he quoted him correctly, ignoring my point. I e-mailed back that he did that, but I expect he's got some other e-mails to answer...

And now Cheney will go on TV this week and cite the Politico article in support of his statement. He will cite in a casual way but be assured this is how things are done in the world of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney etc. How many times have I seen clips of these guys citing an article in the WSJ or the WAPO to somehow give credence to their otherwise unsupported, purely subjective positions. Regardless of whether they produced intelligence, which the evidence does not support, torture is against US law as well as Against the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration had to create a new law (ie. act liberal with the law, rather than conservative) in order to justify new procedures to interrogate detainees. The Supreme Court has ruled in Hamdan v Rumsfield that these detainees still fall under US laws and Treatises. Under Ronald Reagan, the Us Congress passed a law that said the US was required to prosecute any officials who used torture. Why is Cheney against Ronald Reagan, I thought he was their hero? Oh, he is only their hero when it is convenient. And conservatives wonder why the left does not trust them, perhaps it is their hypocrisy on any number of issues.

Politico is a RNC enabler, the same as Fox News, Max News, etc.

More failures among our media elites:
"The report found that the interrogations obtained critical information to identify terrorists and stop potential plots and said some imprisoned terrorists provided more information after being exposed to brutal treatment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/politics/26intel.html

(1) What in the world is a "potential plot"?

(2) The treatment wasn't merely "brutal" - it was in fact lethal:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-05/how-many-were-tortured-to-death/

There are so many silly ideas on the left, but the silliest just might be that anyone who disagrees with leftist dogma is being paid. I am gainfully self-employed, answer to no one, am a member of no political party and, for better or worse, my opinions are my own. Really, you people should learn to debate on the merits, not go looking for non-existent conspiracies.

But then I guess you wouldn't be on the left.

And all this nonsense that the useful information was learned before the EITs is belied by the report that was just released - you should read it - and by statements from the very partisan, current director of the CIA Leon Panetta. Is he being paid to lie too? If so, take it up with his ultimate employer, President Obama.

One needs to dig down in all this crap to give it any real meaning, and the media does not have the time, inclination, or, in some cases, ability to do that. It is no doubt true that the bulk of intelligence about Al Qaeda was obtained from KSM, and KSM was tortured. But:

1. How much of the information was obtained by non-coercive means?

2. Even if non-coercive means were not given a real chance to work, could all the same information have been obtained by traditional interrogation by well-trained (as opposed to CIA) interrogators?

3. Did the ends justify the means? This is the really hard question that no one in the Bush Admin ever asked.

Allow me to quote directly from the Inspector General's report - for the only three people who were waterboarded (the most controversial EIT)

The waterboard has been used on three detainees....

Prior to the use of EITs, Abu Zubaydah provided information for [redacted] intelligence reports. Interrogators applied the waterboard to Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times during August 2002. [The report explains that each application of water is counted separately, and most of the 83 applications lasted less than ten seconds.] During the period between the end of the use of the waterboard and 30 April 2003, he provided information for approximately [redacted] intelligence reports. It is not possible to say definitively that the waterboard is the reason for Abu Zubaydah's increased production, or if another factor, such as the length of detention, was the catalyst. Since the use of the waterboard, however, Abu Zubaydah has appeared to be cooperative.

With respect to A-Nashiri, [redacted] reported two waterboard sessions in November 2002, after which the psychologist/interrogators determined that Al-Nashiri was compliant....Because of the litany of techniques used by different interrogators over a relatively short period of time, it is difficult to identify exactly why Al-Nashiri became more willing to provide information. However, following the use of EITs, he provided information about his most current operational planning and [redacted] as opposed to the historical information he provided before the use of EITs.

On the other hand, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete

Now, of course you can never say with 100% certainty that any given technique led to any particular result - and the report is careful to say so - but how can any honest, objective reading of these paragraphs lead you to conclude that EITs were not effective in leading to 'increased cooperation' or 'increased production of intelligence'? Everyone arguing that all useful intelligence was learned before the EITs is doing so either in ignorance or willful denial of these very illuminating findings.

Look, you can disagree about whether it was worth it, but not whether the EITs employed by the CIA did in fact yield useful intelligence. They did. Acceptance is the first path to deliverance. I invite you to join me in the reality-based community, where we can accept inconvenient truths.

Yeah, and Bush and the Bush family are good friends and partners with Saudi royal family, including the Bin Laden's. 18 of the 20 hijackers of the 9-11 plot were from Saudi Arabia why did we not go to war with them, Cato?

You say to Matt:
Matt - are you seriously claiming that Bush and Cheney knew anything about 911 in advance? Because if so: 1) you're a nut; and 2) I have an irrefutable argument that would prove - even to you! - that they didn't.

Uh, are you parsing words here? There is no doubt that former President Bush dropped the ball with 9-11, we were in fact attacked. Here is the actual document which supports the fact that Bush and Cheney were not exactly interested in AQ, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm

Here is another nugget, (from wiki) "Clarke and his communications with the Bush administration regarding Osama bin Laden and associated terrorist plots targeting the United States were mentioned frequently in National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's public interview by the 9/11 investigatory commission on April 8, 2004. Of particular significance was a memo[16] from January 25, 2001 that Clarke had authored and sent to Rice.

Along with making an urgent request for a meeting of the National Security Council's Principals Committee to discuss the growing al-Qaeda threat in the greater Middle East, the memo also suggests strategies for combating al-Qaeda that might be adopted by the new Bush Administration.[17]"

I also love the fact that you are citing the link between AQ and Hussein, this little nugget from the Clark wiki page has some further insights about the right wing-nuts efforts on the matter , "Clarke has also been criticized by conservatives for suggesting the possibility of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda but then, after investigation, concluding that no link had been established."

And here is some testimony by Clarke under oath(9-11 commission), which has yet to be contradicted by any party (except maybe you),
(Timothy) ROEMER: You then wrote a memo on September 4th to Dr. Rice expressing some of these frustrations several months later, if you say the time frame is May or June when you decided to resign. A memo comes out that we have seen on September the 4th. You are blunt in blasting DOD for not willingly using the force and the power. You blast the CIA for blocking Predator. You urge policy-makers to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home or abroad after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done. You write this on September the 4th, seven days before September 11th."

You are obviously an intelligent individual, and I do not know anything about you but your facts are really quite backwards from where I am sitting. Maybe you think I am delusional because I speak from the left, that is your right, but as you said the facts are facts, resorting to (ad hominen) attacks against other posters (no matter what they said) does not lend credibility to your case. No matter what defense the Bush admin gives, their leadership for better or worse failed to protect Americans on that day. "Clarke was the only member of the Clinton or Bush Administrations who provided an apology to the family members of victims along with an acknowledgement of the government's failure" Leaders have to accept responsibility and I have yet to hear Cheney, Bush or Rumsfield offer one up for their failures to protect this country. Of course you can look at from their point of view and say that they protected this country from 9-12-01 through 1-19-09, so that got that going for them.

Josh - I don't deny the Bush Administration was not that interested in terrorism or AQ before 9/11 - but they weren't interested in Iraq either, their big concern was China (amply supported in Thomas Barnett's "The Pentagon's New Map" - Barnett is a Democrat who nevertheless supported the Iraq war). Even so, even Democrats have to admit they were more interested than the Clinton admin, which of course never even visited the WTC after the first attack, had the opportunity to kill bin Laden but passed because of legalisms etc. - the list of Clinton mistakes is huge, well-known and not controversial. And of course, planning for the 911 attack began under the Clinton admin, and the Bush admin was hampered in its ability to 'connect the dots' because of the wall that did not allow the FBI and CIA to share information - a wall that was intentionally raised by Jamie Gorelick when she was in Clinton's Justice Dept.

All that contributed to 911, but most of the blame should fall on the Clinton admin because 1) they could have nipped things in the bud (by killing OBL), but didn't; and 2) their absolute indifference to a growing terrorist threat; and 3) policies that unintentionally made it more difficult to realize and respond to imminent attacks.

It should also be noted that points 1 and 3 above were motivated by legal concerns - excessively restrictive interpretations of US law, in my opinion, which shifted the balance against fighting terrorism and directly, although obviously unintentionally, contributed to the 911 attack.

You obviously disagree with the Bush admin's positions and more aggressive approach taken in the war on terror. But you have to recognize that 1) these positions were in fact carefully vetted by highly trained and regarded lawyers, and were determined to be within the bounds of US law; and 2) were motivated in large part by the problems that resulted from an excessively rigid interpretation of US law - and which made it more difficult to fight terrorism.

Trying to balance legal protections with aggressive efforts to stop people before they kill us is difficult. It's hard to know where to draw the line. The Bush admin looked at the 911 experience, concluded that Clinton-admin policies were too restrictive and contributed to the problem, and then got legal, defense and intelligence specialists together to try to figure out what we could do within the bounds of US law to attack the problem more aggressively. EITs were part of the solution, as well as several other things I'm sure you oppose.

But here's the thing, and this is why I have so little patience with the left's talking points on this issue - you (i.e. the left generally) refuse to acknowledge any of the above. The left refuses to concede that 911 was not stopped because of restrictions the US govt placed on itself, and the Bush admin undertook a good faith effort to eliminate these problems because they really were very concerned about the good of the country and wanted to make sure 911 didn't happen again. Why is it so hard to concede this very obvious point, that George Bush was acting in good faith? I don't think Clinton's policies had evil intent - if he knew for a fact OBL was planning 911 he would have killed him, and if they knew the wall would have made it so hard to connect the dots it wouldn't have been there. Bush unwound these mistakes, as Al Gore would have too if he won the election (and please, he lost fair and square - you gotta admit that too).

And by the way, my facts about Saddam and AQ come straight from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, which considered Clarke's testimony among many other things.

It's amazing how much hate Republicans have for the Clintons. Why is that? Is it their success? Or is it that Bill Clinton was aquitted after Republicans failed to impeach him? Or is it that the Clintons can still walk around in America with out special hand picked shills like Bush does? Why is that? All I hear these days is whinning losers after 06.

Like clockwork if cheney or republicans say it the msm worhips it as fact and bases all line of questioning from that lie. I like to call Politico Republitco

Politico Republitco Ridiculoso.