BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL

Where’s Mandy when you need him? Who’s Alistair Campbell shafting now?

With all this unfortunate torture news coming out this week you’d be damned sure that if these bad boys were still lying for Queen and Country poor Condi would never have been being grilled about her unfortunate views on Abu-Ghraib.

In fact Condi has some pretty clear views on torture.

Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was one of the few to actually ask her any difficult questions at all.

Dodd and Kerry focused toward the end of the day on whether the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere constituted torture or violations of international law, and the damage that disclosures about these techniques had done to U.S. standing in the world.

Citing instances of forced nudity and simulated drowning in interrogations, Dodd asked "whether or not you consider them to be torture or not." Rice declined to characterize them as such.

"Senator, the determination of whether interrogation techniques are consistent with our international obligations and American law are made by the Justice Department," she said. "I don't want to comment on any specific interrogation techniques."

And this just after the Senate confirmed Alberto Gonzales - the defender of torture as
American policy - US Attorney General.

Ah well that’s the Land of the Free for you.

More on Condi here.