I wish people would just say that and move along.

Who are the Post’s sources for this full-scale vindication of Dick Cheney’s defense of torture? “Two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified”; “one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding”; “one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said”; “One former agency official.” It’s unclear how much overlap there is in that orgy of pro-Cheney anonymity, but there is not a single on-the-record source to corroborate the Torture-Saved-Us-From-Mass-Death narrative, nor is there even a shred of information about the motives or views of these “officials.”

Strikingly, they provide little evidence for Cheney’s claims that the ‘enhanced interrogation’ program run by the CIA provided valuable information. In fact, throughout both documents, many passages — though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.

Sometimes it feels like the House Democrats are the only ones in Washington who remember the last eight years and what those people did to America.

House Democrats said yesterday that they expect to launch a formal investigation into a secret CIA program that was not disclosed to Congress for almost eight years, a probe that could entangle senior Bush administration officials who oversaw intelligence issues.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee said the inquiry would examine both the nature of the still-secret program and the decisions to keep congressional oversight committees in the dark about its existence.

Of course we need to haul their asses in front of congress. And if they committed crimes or lie about committing crimes, their butts need to be in jail.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

I clearly don’t agree with John McCain on practically every issue under the sun, but I’ll say that he’s been pretty consistent in his opposition to torture and in light of Cheney’s torture defense speech today — McCain remains so. And of course it’s worth noting that in this entire debate, Sen. McCain is one of the few people discussing this issue who has actually been tortured.

And look, I know all these roads seem to lead to Dick Cheney, but Dick Cheney was the vice president. The buck on all of this lays at the feet of George W. Bush.

Another GOP strategist, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, pointed out the conundrum for Republicans over the former vice president’s current role. “Even if he’s right, he’s absolutely the wrong messenger,” this strategist said. His main worry, he added, is that Cheney keeps the public focused on the past, rather than the future. “We want Bush to be a very distant memory in the next election. The more Cheney is on the front burner, the more difficult it’s going to be.”

“He’s perfectly entitled to make his case, and given that Dick Cheney is as popular as Britney Spears at a Sunday school teacher convention, we hope he continues to be the face of the Republican Party,” said Hari Sevugan, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee. “His continued presence reminds people that the GOP is unwilling to put forward new ideas or leadership, and so long as he continues to be the voice of the Republican cause, he ensures that the Republican Party will remain the party of the past.”

Um, thanks?

“Are you in favor of releasing the documents that Dick Cheney has been requesting be released?,” asked Rep. Rohrbacher.

“Well, it won’t surprise you, I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information,” responded Secretary Clinton to a smattering of laughter in the hearing room.

Congressman Rohrbacher appeared none too pleased and went at it again. “Madam Secretary, I asked you a specific question,” he said sternly.

“Congressman, I believe we ought to get to the bottom of this entire matter. I think it is in the best interest of our country and that is what the president believes and that is why he has taken the actions he did,” said Clinton.

Cheney’s decision to serve as the self-appointed defender of the Bush presidency has significantly raised his profile in the first 100 days of the Obama administration and presents a real challenge for a party hoping to put forward new faces and fresh ideas.

“He is a face of the past,” said one Republican consultant who spoke on the condition he not be named. “A face of conflict and too polarizing. So, not a good face of the party.”

Cheney is largely unpopular among voters generally and particularly independent voters that proved so critical to Obama’s across-the-board victory last fall. A late March Gallup poll showed that just three in ten voters had a favorable opinion of Cheney while 63 percent felt unfavorably toward him. Those numbers are consistent with where Gallup has shown Cheney for the last three years — a period long enough to demonstrate a hardening of opinion toward the former vice president.

The only way this could be better for the Dems to have an unpopular discredited ghoul like Cheney out there is if Cheney shot somebody in the face. Again.

“You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the Vice President of the United States.”

Karl Rove worked for the biggest liar and most odious excuse of a subhuman being in history to ever hold the office of the vice presidency in the guise of Dick Cheney. For Rove to lecture on Vice Presidential truthfulness is like Oedipus lecturing on what an appropriate relationship with your mother is.

* The story is the perfect kind of nonsense Drudge story that once determined our political fates in America, and I found it on Drudge. Thankfully for the time being we’re very over that obsession with Republican-created trivia noise.

A new Gallup poll tests how former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney have fared in public opinion since they left office. The answer: Badly.

Bush’s favorable rating is only 35%, with 63% unfavorable. Cheney is at 30% favorable to 62% unfavorable.

Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input.

Displeased with the former vice-president’s recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he’s hurting  GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings.

“How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney?” Mr. Obama said Friday in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on “60 Minutes” on CBS.

The president was responding to recent charges by Mr. Cheney that the administration’s decision to shut down the Guantánamo prison, along with other policies on the treatment of terrorism suspects, would make the United States more vulnerable to attacks.

Bush administration terrorism policy “hasn’t made us safer,” Mr. Obama said, according to excerpts of the interview released Saturday.

“What it has been,” he continued, “is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment.”

So many Americans and others are dead because of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. You’d think they’d at least shut up.