Pentagon non-denies New Yorker story

Um, huh?

In a statement on Saturday, the Pentagon described that article as "outlandish" and "filled with error."

"No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos," it said.

That is a classic non-denial denial. Or, as Josh Marshall calls it, "splutter."

In a related story, Phil Carter explains why the Bush administration's penchant for torture will undermine the criminal prosecution of terrorists, forcing us to limit our options to a strictly martial one.