Jane Meyer, who is a hero on the torture issue,on "The Real Patriots"

++Jane Meyer's writing documented how the Bush administration went ,in Dick Cheney's word, to the "dark side."  In the latest issue of the New Yorker, she writes about "The Real Torture Patriots".

++Her basic point was that President Obama missed an opportunity to send a strong message to the C.I.A. about the past and that he tried to play the issue of the release of the Torture report both ways. Meyer argues that he and Brennen wanted to "save the building",implying career officers could not take hard criticism and so he referred to them as "American patriots" when he should have mentioned people within the last Administration who tried to prevent such practices.

++I can think of William Howard Taft IV at the State Department who openly opposed the torture memos of Yoo. The Military Advocate General opposed torture. Meyer cites Ali Soufan,an FBI interrogator who served as a whistleblower to the harsh interrogations and showed they were useless for intelligence. Bush appointee Alberto Moira,the former General Counsel for the US Navy, risked his job by protesting loudly.

++Meyer recalls that internal resistance to torture was so loud and persistent that John Helgerson, the CIA's Inspector General,conducted a serious and influential investigation that led the Justice Department to ask the Agency to suspend the program until it could be reconciled with the law. Eventually, the Supreme Court stopped it.

++Sadly,even after Ronald Reagan ratified the Torture Convention, the issue has now become so politicized that torture defines you politically.