Rice: When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.

Maureen Dowd is a columnist I like to read. In a column entitled "How Character Corrodes" published in the New York Times she reported that Condoleezza Rice plans to go back to being a professor of poli sci at Stanford. A student at a reception there recently told her that he had read that: (as published in the column)

Ms. Rice authorized waterboarding, and he asked her, “Is waterboarding torture?” She replied: “The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture. So that’s — and by the way, I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency.” This was precisely Condi’s problem. She simply relayed. She never stood up against Cheney and Rummy for either what was morally right or what was smart in terms of our national security. The student pressed again about whether waterboarding was torture.“ By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture,” Ms. Rice said, almost quoting Nixon’s logic: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

Wow! First of all I thought the issue of just being the messenger without applying any independent thought was conclusively settled in the Nuremburg trials. Secondly wasn’t the whole point of the Magna Carta to get away from the attitude that leaders can be imperial and omnipotent. I realize that the Magna Carta is part of British constitutional development but the basic principles still apply universally and have found their way into the U.S.A. Constitution. I guess Ms Rice missed the part about the President not being above the law. Maybe she’d say that’s not being above the law, but that the President is the law. Frightening! In another article in the paper there was an op ed piece on legalese. I can tell you I’ve never seen any legalese that could hold a candle to Ms Rice’s, and other politician’s, polispeak.

The full article can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/opinion/03dowd.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=How%20Character%20Corrodes%20dowd%20rice&st=cse