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Heather: Matthews brings in torture apologist David Rivkin to debate the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer on whether the U.S. should release the photos depicting torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course the CIA is arguing against the release of the documents. Their disclosure would mean that someone at the CIA (or those that gave the orders to torture) is either going to be held criminally liable or at the very least get sued in civil court. The only danger here that Rivkin is crying about is that someone will be held accountable for their actions.

I just want to know when Rivkin is going to let Jesse Ventura waterboard him? Hannity wouldn't do it. I have no doubt Rivkin wouldn't either but he sure loves telling everyone how harmless waterboarding is at every opportunity.

The media rolls this guy out every time they need someone to defend the indefensible. Listening to him and the Cheney's defending torture is becoming something akin to fingers down a chalk board of late.

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Lawrence O'Donnell filling in for Ed Schultz rips into torture apologist David Rivkin. Rivkin has to be one of the most infuriating pundits out there and O'Donnell does a good job of taking on his talking points. That said I think O'Donnell would have better luck getting through to the wall behind him than he's ever going to have with the likes of Rivkin. The Republicans trot this guy out every time they need someone to defend the indefensible at Congressional hearings such as this one: Sheldon Whitehouse Destroys David Rivkin’s “Gallery of Horribles” Marcy wrote about from back in March.

John Amato:

Rivkin actually has the nerve to use the SERE program as a defense. The one that the odious Liz Cheney tried to use on Norah O'Donnell and which failed miserably.
This idiot uses the fact that since we tortured our own people using this program it's OK to torture detainees.

Rivkin: Deliberate infliction of severe physical and mental pain and suffering.

O'Donnell: Did you not here that description severe physical and mental pain and suffering?

Rivkin: That is a subjective view.

O'Donnell: Pain is subjective

Rivkin: Look, under your logic everything is torture.

O'Donnell: Everything is not torture, not at all. You're the defender of torture.

Not content with its past role in screening candidates for positions in the Bush judiciary and Justice Department, the conservative Federalist Society is back to defend the Bush torture team it helped create. Ironically, the Federalists' conference call Monday came just three days after McClatchy reported that Steven Bradbury - one of its members and a figure at the center of the storm over the release of the OLC torture members - refuted their claim that the military's SERE training program proved the United States did not torture terror detainees.

As Politico reported, the National Review hosted a media conference call featuring many of the usual suspects among the Bush torture apologists:

The lawyers' group, which was a pipeline for judges in the Bush White House, is hosting a call this morning with National Review writer Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, lawyer David Rivkin, and Chapman University Law School Dean John Eastman.

Their claim, as Politico noted, was that the "much-criticized memos from the Office of Legal Counsel were perfectly reasonable." McCarthy brushed off the CIA's use of waterboarding on terror suspects by proclaiming "they were not going to be killed by the tactic." Eastman, whose university is hosting Federalist Society member and Bush torture architect John Yoo as a visiting professor, insisted the treatment was no worse than that undergone by American service personnel:

Eastman responded to The New York Times's Scott Shane about the use of waterboarding during the Spanish Inquisition and by the Japanese military, and responded "that psychological reviews of graduates of the military's SERE program, in which members of the U.S. military were waterboarded, is a more relevant example.

"Why would I go and look at something the Spanish Inquisition did just because it was also called 'waterboarding'?" he asked.

Perhaps because, as the Bush Office of Legal Counsel chief and 2005 torture memo author Steven Bradbury concluded four years ago, "SERE trainees know it is part of a training program."

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