Experiencing torture firsthand -- and getting fired for it

This is, to borrow the phraseology of our soon to be new AG, "abhorrent."

Daniel Levin is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative Republican. Now recall Michael Mukasey’s suggestion that he didn’t know what waterboarding was? Levin took a logical approach: he decided to experience it firsthand. And he came to a conclusion that, in my mind, shows unacceptable flexibility in accepting the technique. But how did the Bush White House react to this? It was swift and simple: Levin was forced out of office.

When Levin took over from Goldsmith, he went to work on a memo that would effectively replace the Bybee memo as the administration’s legal position on torture. It was during this time that he underwent waterboarding. In December 2004, Levin released the new memo. He said, “Torture is abhorrent” but he went on to say in a footnote that the memo was not declaring the administration’s previous opinions illegal. The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo.

But Levin never finished a second memo imposing tighter controls on the specific interrogation techniques. Sources said he was forced out of the Justice Department when Gonzales became attorney general.

The Bush Administration’s swift reaction: any deviation from the torture litmus test results in dismissal.

The matter raises some more very unpleasant questions.

Levin was trying to impose some guidelines on the use of waterboarding as a technique. The purpose of the guidelines was to preserve some very questionable basis to argue that the practice was not torture. Why did the Administration stop this? I can only see one explanation. They wanted full flexibility. That means that they contemplated practices that would venture into the most extreme, cruel and horrible treatment. No limitations. Let the torturer have at it.

Impeach George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. Now. Their fear of prosecution for their actions is strong evidence of their guilt.

One of the questions that's been troubling me during this "debate" over "techniques." How long before these "abhorrent" yet still-legal sorta techniques begin to seep into domestic law enforcement?