Reply #17: I wanted to address one thing you said (and you said it all well):

[beachmom]

I think our country 'over-steered', like during a car accident, after 9/11. Bush/Cheney were driving. They ordered things done...maybe in a good-faith effort to protect the country...that were wrong and against the values of this country.

Here's the thing. The first torture memo was written in 2002, and that fits in with your "over-steering" analogy. BUT, the other 2 memos were written in 2005 after the election. I think that by then, cooler heads most certainly should have prevailed, yet they did not.

Now I am not sure if people here read Andrew Sullivan, but he has constructed a compelling theory of how once you start torturing, in order to justify the first time you tortured, you have to keep doing so again and again. I think that is what happened. I think our country was run by a bunch of thugs, frankly.