Helen Thomas Ridicules Obama Torture Investigation Stance With Bush Comparison

For the fourth time this week, the White House press briefing was dominated by questions over the president's stance -- seemingly souring -- on the idea of a "truth commission" to investigate the use of torture during the Bush years.

Only this time, instead of demanding to know whether Obama was contradicting himself or bowing to pressures from the "right" or the "left," there was at least some inquiry into the efficacy of a commission itself. The sharpest line of questioning came from the veteran of the bunch, Helen Thomas, who demanded to know whether the president learned from history and labeled the White House's "look-forward-not-back" line Bush-esque.

From the transcript comes this exchange:

HELEN THOMAS: What's the President's decision today on a truth commission and doesn't he believe the history? Doesn't he believe you learn a lesson from history? Don't look back! I mean, what if we didn't look back to anything. What is this? ... That's a mantra left by the Bush Administration: never look back they don't want to repeat...

ROBERT GIBBS: Well let's not conflate the president's position on a commission with his understanding of Webster's definition of history. I think that might be, for somebody who enjoys history as much as he does, that might be a dangerous concept to enter into.

THOMAS: Why does he say don't look back?

GIBBS: Well because, Helen, there are important things that face this country right now, each and every day.

THOMAS: Doesn't he think he can learn from history?

GIBBS: We don't doubt that we can learn from history. But there's an economic crisis, there is a crisis in unemployment, there is a financial stability crisis, there is a home foreclosure crisis. There are any number of things that the president enumerated just the other day-

THOMAS: Nobody is asking him to focus on that, they are asking Congress to.

GIBBS: Well, but seemingly the White House's briefing of the time is taking up by what is the dominion of Congress....

THOMAS: Does he think that nobody should pay a price for the horror that we have gotten into?

GIBBS: The president, first and foremost and most importantly, has changed the policy of this country by which anybody who works for this government can act. History, I think, will be left to historians and we will leave it up to them. But I think it is important to understand that the most important step that was taken in all of this debate was to end once and for all the use of enhanced interrogation techniques by any member of this government

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Comments

[RickCoMatic]

11:24 PM on 04/26/2009

Weren't people making fun of Helen a week or two ago? I admire her for tenacity.

There's always someone who will need to hear the truth. That is the person who's notes will be used to write History. All the other stuff that gets said is nothing we really want to hear. We want the story from the person who has already separated the wheat from the chaff.
If "Advanced Interrogation Technique's" is going to be what we call torture. And, ...
"Overseas Contingency Operation" what we'll be calling the reason Flag draped caskets arrive at the airport. Can we have a contest to name the Depression?

9,000 GOP Earmarks. A Senate vacancy under suspicion. People who need to be caught doing what they are getting away with. People who need to go to Jail for being caught doing what they did. It's time to kick some ass or take some names. Thomas is on the case!

Thank you, Helen.
Need some help. Just call me.
RickCoMatic

[gratonite]

04:18 PM on 04/26/2009

Being the White House press secretary requires such an immense capacity to shovel bull. Pretty sickening no matter who's got the job--Tony Snow, Ari Fleischer, Dana Perino, and now Gibbs. What repulsive non-answers they provide.

[QuasiEgalitarian]

03:50 PM on 04/26/2009

Helen Thomas and Amy Goodman are the best journalist in America. Their integrity cannot be touched by any of the corporate slugs who smirks into a camera lens.

I wonder who came up with the name "Advanced Torture Techniques?" give em' a cookie. The pundits and operatives talk in circles in the name of political affiliation not right or wrong.

[roch20]

04:54 PM on 04/26/2009

Wow, you are fired up; amen, totally agree!

[mooph]

06:37 PM on 04/26/2009

But they evince none of the subtleties required for getting things done in the political realm. Then again, that's not their job.

[ConfuciusSay-]

01:18 PM on 04/26/2009

"...the use of enhanced interrogation techniques by any member of this government..."

THIS government? Ok, fine.
What about the LAST government?
What about the NEXT government?

Are laws so ephemeral, that they last only 4-8 years at a time?

[super]

05:04 PM on 04/26/2009

Exactly! Well said.

[ConfuciusSay-]

01:05 PM on 04/26/2009

Helen Thomas stands head and shoulders above the pundits in the news networks.

[Okieborn]

12:35 PM on 04/26/2009

Helen You Are Still Doing Fantastic work !!
I watched you years ago stay after President John F. Kennedy !!!!
Keep Up Your Great Questions !!

[ramblin jack]

10:01 PM on 04/25/2009

Gibbs the new spin meister. Remember when Jon Mc Cain was ridiculed for not being able to do more than omne thing at a time. The President is busy we know this and understand but that is a weak weak argument not to prosecute the law breakers.

[mgloraine]

08:51 PM on 04/25/2009

How can he claim that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" aka "torture" have been ended "once and for all" when Obama's refusal to investigate and prosecute equals tacit approval? By letting torture stand at any time in history as SOP for any person or agency associated with the US Government, Obama is GUARANTEEING that torture will be called for from the White House again. He is creating a precedent which will make Obama as guilty of war crimes as Cheney & Bush by allowing them to stand unpunished.

If Obama doesn't prosecute, he should be impeached.

[dynwitch]

10:22 AM on 04/26/2009

It's not the president's job to prosecute; it's Congress's. They need to get on the ball.

[super]

05:07 PM on 04/26/2009

Excuse me? Congress's job is to legislate. It is the administrative branch, specifically the Justice department, that is tasked with prosecution.

[mickey4089]

08:32 PM on 04/25/2009

Is looking back really looking back or is it setting up the future? If Gerald Ford had not pardoned Nixon (in the interest of not looking back but moving forward), Nixon would have been held accountable for his crimes. Had this happened, all future presidents would know that they too would be held accountable if they committed crimes. If Nixon had been held accountable after Watergate, perhaps Mr. Bush would have thought twice before authorizing violations of the law. In other words. dealing properly with Nixon would have been looking forward. Properly dealing with the Bush administration law breakers now would also be looking forward, not looking back.

[zakon]

08:38 PM on 04/25/2009

Ford, even though he was Nixon's hand-picked VP, did a disservice to justice. However, Nixon's impeachment served justice.

Bush was not impeached, therefore, justice's only hope is criminal prosecution.

If this government does not prosecute, it is as morally bankrupt as Bush and Nixon because it is not upholding our laws.

[chacounne]

02:30 PM on 04/26/2009

Uh,

Nixon wasn't impeached, he resigned.

Standing with you otherwise, for justice and accountability,
For Dan,
Heather

[mrmikes]

10:44 AM on 04/26/2009

Go mickey. An excellent point. The perversions of power that the Bush admin. committed must never happen again.
The scope of this criminal conspiracy far outpaces a sloppy burglary.
I think We The People will ultimately decide how far this goes and I'm holding out for the whole 9.

[Prakosh]

07:30 PM on 04/26/2009

Let's not compare what Nixon did to a sloppy burglary. Watergate was only a small, if overblown, part of what the people who worked for Nixon did. From slush funds to the break-in at Daniel Ellsburg's to the taping of people inside and outside the administration, to the misuse and abuse of the FBI and CIA, to the lies about the war in Vietnam to the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nixon made Bush look like a piker. But that doesn't mean that Bush shouldn't pay for all his mistakes as well. I think that Bush did his best to run a close second but he couldn't come close. I rank the 1 and 2 as the worst presidents in the history of America. But that could change depending on the duration of the recession.

[zakon]

08:18 PM on 04/25/2009

"Does he think that nobody should pay a price for the horror that we have gotten into?" -- Helen Thomas asks of our government

The elephant in the room is this ...

The buck stops at President Bush

IF President Bush is not charged with torturing, then I spit on this banana republic

[ConfuciusSay-]

01:14 PM on 04/26/2009

No.
The buck stops with Cheney. Bush was merely an accomplice. He is politically deactivated with no future now. Cheney is still maliciously active, like an isotope with a long half life.

[tbone99]

07:44 PM on 04/25/2009

An independent investigation/prosecutor is appointed. After that , Obama 's time is his own. - It is up to these legal minds to investigate and decide if laws are broken . If laws are broken - it is up to the judicial branch to proceed to sentence.

I don't really see how this takes away from Obama's attention to the crisess we face. After all, Bill Clinton did it ON HIMSELF and seemed to govern effectively until he was snagged in the last year.
Since Obama will not be being investigating his own self , it should not interfere with his governing.

[mrmikes]

10:31 AM on 04/26/2009

I think Obama' s distance from this hot potato is entirely appropriate.
This is a job for congress, the AG, and now the United Nations.
The President must remain above the frey.

[zakon]

05:26 PM on 04/25/2009

President Bush and Vice President Cheney are criminally responsible for torture, it's the elephant in the room.

I fear President Obama will become as morally bankrupt as they if he does not see this through to their criminal prosecution.

I fear President Obama will be satisfied with projecting an image of 'transparency' here and abroad.

I fear President Obama will be satisfied by letting Egypt and Syria know that they will no longer be needed to torture our lower level suspects whom the US government kidnaps off the streets.

I fear that JUSTICE WILL NEVER BE SOUGHT. Instead, an air of moral superiority will be projected, a disgusted public will quickly lose it's moral sense of outrage, and a corporate press will move forward, and then the issue just goes away. Just like those who disappeared after their time of screams.

I fear a future President can pick up where Bush left off, or that President Obama will change his mind.

I fear we are a rogue superpower, and the only ones that don't care are us.

[MochasMom]

05:06 PM on 04/25/2009

Obama knows what he's doing. I'm loving every minute of it, he's brilliant!

[johnie2xs]

04:49 PM on 04/25/2009

Obama's method of inciting the electorate and the Legislature to pick up the banner of full disclosure, investigations and indictments, by playing possum on the issue, is his genius.

[dashboard]

04:56 PM on 04/25/2009

Hear hear.

[rhubardpi]

05:19 PM on 04/25/2009

Yeah sure......you boys need to lay off the chocolate pudding, it's all over yer face.

[ramblin jack]

10:03 PM on 04/25/2009

Man some of you need to step with all this Obama knows just trust. Smacks of the way the country dealt with Bush the Decider

[dashboard]

10:08 AM on 04/26/2009

The difference is Obama knows what the he11 he is doing. Bush did not have a clue.

[gallo146]

04:27 PM on 04/25/2009

Once again, all persons involved in the torture scandal should be investigated and let the legal process decides who is not guilty: CIA torturers, USA Army torturers, USA Justice Lawyers, former VP Cheney, former Pres Bush.

Either that or we really would be a banana republic.

[dashboard]

04:54 PM on 04/25/2009

Obama's strategy is to purposely stall the investigation and prosecution. Look what it has yielded so far, Red Cross report, memos, Senate report and now more prison pictures. This is a brilliant strategy. Now the players are coming out from under their rocks to defend themselves and the sniping is starting to occur. Soon the coerced players will start singing. You start with an agressive investigation/prosecution and all the players will clam up "Can't comment, under investigation, 5th amendment privileges, etc".