Sullivan on the Washington Post’s excellent investigation showing how Torture Yoo and the Veep “pushed the envelope” on presidential power, including the right to torture:

The only defense by Bush and Cheney against charges of war crimes is that a president definitionally cannot commit war crimes, if he’s acting as he sees fit in the defense of the nation. It cannot even be deemed restricted to foreign lands - because Cheney’s view of the war on terror includes American soil and allows the president to detain and torture American citizens. As such, it is a doctrine completely toxic to democratic self-government and to the entire principle of a president obedient to the rule of law. It is tyranny - enabled by lawyers. It is really stunning in retrospect how adamant Cheney is on this, and how utterly contemptuous of public and world opinion he is. It is almost as if torture is his primary weapon in the war. You get the distinct sense that, in wartime, he finds democracy itself repugnant.

Mostly because, I’d say, that if the war in Iraq and the coming war in Iran are indeed about oil, ruthlessness is required. With Cheney, there’s no better man for the job.