Politico's Mike Allen, maybe hoping for some of that good Drudge amplification he seems to crave, turns the mic over to an anonymous Bush administration official frothing at the mouth over the release of the torture memos:
A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”
“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. ... Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."
“I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either 1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”
Inspired by a question from Andrew Sullivan--“What journalistic standard is Allen following in allowing such a person to speak anonymously?”--Greg Sargent asked Allen just that, and got the predictable "if we have a she said, then we have to have a he said" response, with Allen actually saying that while it wasn't ideal it's "better than making readers wonder what the official Bush view is." As if we didn't know what the "official" view has been all along.
As if we didn't have Dick "Dick" Cheney running around for the last three months telling anyone who would listen that torture worked and anybody who disagreed wanted the U.S. to be attacked again. And as if there wasn't a former Bush official willing to go on the record. All Allen needed to do was call former CIA Director Hayden to get the Bush line. Which, by the way, isn't official any more since they're not in office any more.