Conservatives ignored facts to defend Gonzales against allegations ...

[struggle4progress]

... that memos authorized torture

<snip> On the January 4 edition of FOX News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Hume and Roll Call executive editor and FOX News contributor Morton M. Kondracke agreed that the memos didn't authorize torture:

KONDRACKE: What they seem to permit is things that are short of what we would consider torture, where you almost kill somebody or, you know, beat him to within inch of his life or something like that or pull out his teeth or --

HUME: Cause extreme physical pain.

Similarly, a January 6 editorial in the New York Post asserted that "there is no evidence that Gonzales approved of, or encouraged, anything that any reasonable person would consider torture." A January 6 Washington Times op-ed by former Reagan and George H.W. Bush administration Justice Department officials Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin Jr. asserted that "suggestions that Judge Gonzales was somehow complicit in the torture of detainees are nothing short of despicable," noting that the definition of "severe pain and suffering" in the memo had been "drawn from another federal statute in which Congress had defined 'severe pain' for purposes of medical reimbursement."

In fact, the August 2002 memo relating to the use of torture, which Gonzales requested from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, amounts to a brief on the legality of torture. The memo lays out at least three arguments to justify highly abusive interrogation conduct: 1) for the conduct to be prohibited, the pain and suffering must be of an "extreme nature" (further providing that a "certain act may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain or suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within proscription against torture"); 2) a defendant violates the law only if he or she intends to inflict severe pain or harm (as opposed to simply knowing that such damage is likely); and 3) even if the acts the administration sought to justify rose to the level of torture, Congress lacks the constitutional authority to prevent the executive branch from carrying them out in a military context. <snip>

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501060006