The Fruits of Torture?

Besides the timing, something else strikes me as odd about the announcement of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's confessions. Yes, it was perfectly timed to take the heat off of Alberto Gonzales - although it hasn't seemed to work as well as BushCo. would have hoped. But no, there's something else about it.

It seems that "KSM" has confessed to planning or being involved in every known terrorist attack or foiled attack in the past 14 years. He even confessed to a few that nobody knew about. He confessed to plotting to assassinate Jimmy Carter! Who the hell could have possibly wanted to assassinate Carter?!?

No, this reeks of two things:

1. Sheer, crass political cover for Bush's best minority buddy (see how diverse my friends are?), Gonzales. This is pretty much all over the blogosphere and even a couple of MSM outlets as well.

2. The confessions of a man under torture. It's well established that torture nets just about zero useful information; that's why so many intelligence (and intelligent) folks wanted nothing to do with BushCo.'s torture guidelines. What it does get you is the tortured telling you anything you want to hear in order to make the torture stop.

So what are we left with after such considerations?

What we are usually left with after any kind of serious thought about the actions of this administration: an attempt at working the refs and a blatant attempt to further consolidate the power and reach of the "unitary executive;" also known as king, dictator or tyrant.

That is, if you read history - which our fellow citizens are known for being ridiculously ignorant of.