Approved techniques

Revealing that we tortured suspected terrorists -- bad for our reputation.

Defending the techniques -- ok, I guess.

Broadcast just six days after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appointed a federal prosecutor to examine the abuse of detainees, Mr. Cheney described the use of waterboarding and other coercive methods — including threatening detainees with a gun and a drill — as legal and crucial elements of the counterterrorism war.

“I knew about the waterboarding, not specifically in any one particular case, but as a general policy that we had approved,” said Mr. Cheney, who noted that neither a gun nor a drill had actually been used on detainees. “The fact of the matter is the Justice Department reviewed all those allegations several years ago.”

And, echoing Scott, can the Sunday morning yakfests find no one who finds torture abhorrent and can argue that violators of law should be punished?