Feingold Unloads On Peggy Noonan: "Never Heard Anything Quite As Disturbing"

Updated below

Senator Russ Feingold, one of the harshest critics of the Bush administration's national security policies, says he cannot bring himself to support President Obama's apparent decision not to investigate or prosecute illegalities from those years.

"Part of what troubles me are the lawyers -- we should see their law school degrees -- who consciously wrote these memos justifying and explaining full well those outrageous arguments," the Wisconsin Democrat said on Tuesday in reference to the Bush-era torture memos released last week. "I cannot join the president, or his spokesman, or [chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel, who said we aren't going [to prosecute these people]. I can't. I just disagree with them."

Later, the Senator took a swipe at some of the rationalizations for avoiding prosecution that have been voiced by Washington lawmakers and pundits.

"If you want to see just how outrageous this is, I refer you to the remarks made by Peggy Noonan this Sunday," he said, referring to the longtime conservative columnist's appearance on ABC's This Week. "I frankly have never heard anything quite as disturbing as her remark that was something to the affect of: 'well sometimes you just have to move on.'"

"Some things in life need to be mysterious," Noonan said on Sunday about the release of the torture memos. "Sometimes you need to just keep walking. ... It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that."

Feingold's remarks, delivered before the Religious Action Center convention, represent some of the most forceful pushback against the line coming out of the White House to date. Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod have suggested that prosecution of Bush officials is likely off the table due to the political sensitivities that would accompany such retroactive action. On Tuesday morning, however, the New York Times reported that White House "aides did not rule out legal sanctions for the Bush lawyers who developed the legal basis for the use of the techniques."

A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a long-time critic of torture, Feingold viewed investigations and, perhaps, prosecutions as a key tool to restoring America's moral standing.

"It is truly horrifying and unforgivable that anybody operating under the auspices of the United States of America had involvement in any of this," he said. "So I'm not even completely ready to [cede the argument] that people who devised these techniques should be off the hook. I understand the argument. I also remember when people said that they were just following orders. So that troubles me and I am thinking about it."

UPDATE: Feingold responds to Obama's statement that he is open to prosecutions of some Bush officials:

"I am pleased that the president made clear that he has not ruled out investigations or prosecutions of those who authorized torture, or provided the legal justification for it. Horrible abuses were committed in the name of the American people, and we cannot look the other way, or just 'move on.' The final decision will be up to the attorney general and the president, but I urge the Justice Department to take this matter very seriously."

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Comments

[F250BadGirl]

....plain and simple....

if not Full Oversight then Full Accountability.

Restore the Rule of Law.

Restore the Constitution.

We the People need to step up and own this as well....demand investigation and send a very loud and clear message, that using fascist governing techniques to dirty many hands will Never absolve those whom order, conspire nor actually perpetrate warcrimes with foul techniques. Thank the CIA....those whom opposed this further level of cheney bushit doctrine....for 'following orders' has never been nor should be a viable defense to warcrimes.

Thank Senator Feingold....his decades of service and dedication to Protecting & Defending the Constitution....a True Patriot & Beacon of Light for Truth & Justice.

[journeymananalyst]

If waterboarding is torture,why doesn't Congress pass legislation to that effect?

[Dweezle]

the right winged logic is like this old story:

A man is standing in the middle of Times Square waving his arms over his head, a policeman comes and asks him, "What the hell you doing here?" the man replies, "Chasing away Elephants!" to which the policeman replies, "There are no Elephants in New York!" the man then retorts, "Doing a damn good job Aren't I?"

[xlntcat]

I understand the rationalization that we are in peril and that time and resources need to be prioritized, but you don't move on when your foundation has been compromised. We don't trust our government. Crimes were committed in our name without our knowledge. This was an abuse of power in the name of "keeping us safe." It is sickening! Now there appears to be increasing doubt that the safety of Americans motivated the atrocity, but even if the motives behind the crimes had merit, it doesn't justify the crimes. A precedent has been set. All the facts need to come to light, but there are no facts that justify man's inhumanity to man.

[absolument]

How many seconds on the waterboard could Noonan withstand before "confessing" that torture cannot reliably elicit accurate information? Sean Hannity? Richard Bruce Cheney, Jay Bybee, Donald Rumsfeld, et al? I suspect I wouldn't even have to start pouring the water.

[newunderground]

I can just imagine my son, in a car wreck,carrammed against a tree, beer cans strewn about, pot smoke in the air, and he helpfully explains,"DAD, we need to move on. I can't explain the car, I know I took it out, but some things are better left mysterious. Really, dad, with all the challenges facing this family isn't it really better to move forward, and not play the blame game game?
Noonan and her democratic apologists make just as much sense!

[EmmanuelTheTalkingHorse]

Peggy Noonan belongs in the Twilight Zone Retirement Home for the Permanently Confused.

[Hephaestion]

Bravo Russ Feingold! Feingold is the best senator we have, and he's the hottest, too. A little short, but still sexy as heck.

And Peggy Noonan... Didn't her Expiration Date pass about 30 years ago? She sure smells like it did.

[joanjourne]

Yes, thank you senator! The president calling accountability 'retribution' sounds far too much like Bush for my taste.

Obama's done some wonderful things so far. Please, Mr. President, don't falter in restoring the rule of law.

[Bilboo]

It's time to start pressuring the networks to stop giving soapboxes to tr@itors like Noonan.

[gwashington777]

BTW : Don't forget, folks, Obama is a genius politician. Even better than Clinton was. Obama is already teeing up for '12, by giving the impresssion he wants to 'move on', while simultaneously and much more quietly giving his AG the green light. Obama is already collecting 'fence-sitters' (those who still don't hate Bush) by saying we should let bygones be bygones. As usual, Obama is four steps ahead of almost everyone else. Genius.

[Hephaestion]

The Tiger Woods of Politics!

[gwashington777]

HufPo will not allow the kind of language I would use to describe Noonan. Good thing.

I can however say that I am very very pleased to see Noonan more fully exposed as the kind of person she really is.

For years Noonan has been using her (modest) celebrity to very subtly and slyly insult and denigrate the left and liberals in general, every chance she gets. People like her are dangerous because they usually mask their contempt for their fellow humans a little more artfully and constantly get away with it. This time, she got caught.

[Steven Anderson]

I should write a book on this. I was in Pakistan, working with President General Mohammed Zia ul Haq as well as the Mojahadeen in the Northern Frontier Province, which later became the Taliban and Northern Alliance. When I was there every Soviet I remember was interrogated, tortured and, if lucky, shot. The Soviets did the same. I met in Moscow with one of the top KGB interrogators whom we called simply "Crazy", as a name, actually using it so much I do not remember his real name. Some of the things he did to the Afghans made what the Afghans did look like childs play. That is what these hardened people know. You want to take them to a prison and just play load music and expect them to roll over on their comrades? You are kidding right? Our problem is that we have cutsie liberals civies overseeing what the military does. Huge mistake. It is unbelievable how weak it makes our military look in the eyes of its opponents. They must get a good chuckle watching how we stab our own troops in the back.

[newunderground]

Of course we have always tortured in extreme situations, but it was never codified. I saw a comedian on Bill Marr last night. He said "If someone breaks into my house, I'm gonna kill him in self defense. The problem comes when you call the police, day after day saying, If someone breaks in I'm gonna kill him. That's when the police might start worrying about you.

[bngood40]

Maybe the Nazi War Criminals should have all been given a slap on the hand and sent to bed without their suppers! When somebody else is doing the killing we tend to more critical of their crimes. Personally I think Bush and Cheney should have been imprisoned for impersonating the leaders of the "WORLDS ONLY SUPERPOWER". After two stolen elections and wasting 10 Trillion dollars to make Bush a name in history and killing a million Iraqis,Bush and Cheney should be publicly executed so that the world can see it. They are no different than Saddam Hussein other than they hired someone else to shoot their victims instead of doing it themselves.

[Infostream]

I saw Peggy Noonan's draw-dropping rationalization excusing torture, and all I could think is if she ever hit a kid on his bike with her car, she wouldn't stop and call the police she'd just think to herself, "sometimes you just have to keep driving".

[gun]

tolerance for torturers -- how can we move on after what these people did in our name and with our after the fact consent?

if so, we'd better exonerate all the nazis we hung.

political expediency -- isn't this the sickest excuse and precedent?

Obama is apparently going to be a wimp if it makes him popular.

How is that going to save us?

[leftword]

"Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod have suggested that prosecution of Bush officials is likely off the table due to the political sensitivities that would accompany such retroactive action."

What? Political sensitivities? Screw their sensitivities! Did they ever care about our sensitivities during the Bush regime?

Look, the right wing (read "Republicans") will never, ever, ever support Obama's programs. They proved that in their backstab during the stimulus package vote. So why even try to get them to cooperate? Let's shine a bright light on them and force them to say publicly what they really think.