Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 30, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Madonna fiddles while Joni burns
Canadian singer Joni Mitchell rarely gives interviews—a good thing for Bob Dylan and Madonna. Mitchell unloaded on her fellow folkie, the former Bobby Zimmerman, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Bob is not authentic at all,” she said. “He’s a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.” As for Madonna, Mitchell linked her to America’s decline into the “stupid and shallow.” Madonna, she said, “is like Nero, she marks the turning point.” Madonna also inspired the wrath of supermodel Paulina Porizkova, in an online essay on the abuse of cosmetic procedures. She’s a Botoxed blond “who cannot frown,” Porizkova writes, while the much enhanced reality star Heidi Montag is “a cheap, plastic pool float.”

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The Commons: What we’re not talking about

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 7:25 PM - 67 Comments

The Scene. The phrase is perhaps less rhetoric than art: its meaning entirely up to the beholder.

“We are not opening the abortion debate,” the Minister for International Development declared last Thursday.

“We do not wish to debate abortion in this place or elsewhere,” the Prime Minister seconded.

In the weeks since the Prime Minister announced an intention to deal with maternal and child health in the developing world, his government has struggled some to explain precisely what it means by that. When the leader of the opposition pressured the government side to confirm that a “pro-choice consensus” would be followed, the Prime Minister’s spokesman declared that the plan had nothing to do with abortion, gay marriage or capital punishment. Two weeks later, Bev Oda’s office declared that “family planning” would have nothing to do with it. A month after that, the Foreign Affairs Minister announced that access to contraception was most certainly out.

At that point, suddenly seeming to be at odds with international allies it intends to rally to this cause, the government side apparently decided it should stop explaining what wouldn’t be in its plan. And so Ms. Oda was sent up in Question Period last week to announce that the government would not be “closing the door on any options that will save the lives of mothers and children, including contraception.” No clarification was provided as to doors leading to gay marriage and the death penalty, but abortion was given its own clause.

“As we have been saying all along,” she said, “we are not opening the abortion debate.” Continue…

Mother of all debates

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 12:46 PM - 77 Comments

The Conservatives have decided they will vote against today’s Liberal motion because a) it is “a transparent attempt to reopen the abortion debate” and b) it is critical of the George W. Bush administration.

The House is presently debating the matter.

The Show of Shows

By Paul Wells - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

Even as it inspires a hopeful nation and sweeps beyond its borders around a troubled world, the power of the Olympic dream remains sharply circumscribed. On Friday night Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary general, addressed the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics via video-link. He called for armies to “lay down their weapons” and observe the traditional Olympic Truce. At that moment, halfway around the world, 15,000 Afghan, U.S. and British soldiers opened the traditional Can of Whoop-Ass on several hundred entrenched Taliban fighters in the southern Afghan town of Marjah. So much for truces.

Throughout the opening weekend of these Games, assorted other enemies of wishful thinking remained intractable. Street protests tested the good cheer that united much of Vancouver. The weather played devilish variations, by turns windy, warm, rainy or simply miserable. The forces of linguistic discord set in after the opening ceremonies made too little place for the sound of the French language.

The worst moment came before the Games had even begun, when the laws of physics plucked the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili off the track of the Whistler Sliding Centre and flung his body like a rag doll into a metal girder, killing him.

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The People vs. Ex-Generalissimo Blair

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 59 Comments

It’s supposed to be Sept. 12—that’s to say, the post-9/11 era. For over seven years the entire Western world was forced to live out a kind of geopolitical Groundhog Day in which Bush, Cheney, Rummy and the rest of the gang woke up each dawn to the same eternal Tuesday morning in September, the same long shadows of the Twin Towers, the same undying certainty of another six decades of hard, cold, martial winter. It wasn’t only the ideologically opposed among the campus left and the Euro-elites: the vast mass of a once supportive citizenry got ground down, too, exhausted by the very lingo of the “war on terror” and anxious to inter it with the Bush presidency. That’s why Barack Obama was cheered from Berkeley to Berlin. He offered liberation. To invert the old line, war may be interested in him, but he wasn’t interested in war. And in those heady days of late 2008 that seemed almost plausible.
Jaw-jaw is better than war-war, as Churchill said, although he might feel differently if he had to sit through an Obama state of the union. But what about law-law? In the United States, the United Kingdom and even Canada, it’s not enough to move on to Sept. 12: the Bush era itself has to be put on trial. In London, something called “the Chilcot inquiry” has been investigating the process by which the country signed on to the Iraq invasion. For weeks, the usual bunch of shifty grandees have killed any potential awkward line of inquiry with the all-purpose brush-off, “You’ll have to ask Mr. Blair about that.” So finally they did, summoning the now reviled prime minister into the witness box to grill him on the “legality” of the Iraq invasion. Outside, protesters denounced “Bliar,” as his name is now universally spelled: “BLIAR LIED! THOUSANDS DIED!” Like a pedophile serial killer, he was smuggled into the building before dawn, lest the mob turn on him: “The People vs. Ex-Generalissimo Bliar”—or, at any rate, as near as his former comrades on the left seem likely to get to hauling him up before a war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
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Hope comes to America

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 5, 2010 at 10:53 AM - 22 Comments

Herein, the fourth in a semi-regular series chronicling the ninth season of American Idol. You can read the first instalment here, the second instalment here and the third instalment here.

“We saved the best for last,” Ryan Seacrest enthused at the start of American Idol‘s eighth episode. The previous seven episodes, covering something like eight hours of primetime television, had apparently been a tease.

“We’re saving the best for last,” Seacrest said, another 50 minutes later.

After nearly nine hours then, covering auditions in seven cities that collectively drew more than 100,000 Americans desperate to demonstrate their worthiness, American Idol had something left to show us. Something we needed to see, to hear.

And so here was Hope Johnson, a pretty 19-year-old waitress and bartender from Arlington, Texas.

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Top 10 political gaffes of the decade

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 10:31 AM - 18 Comments

Son of a Terminator, Big Brother is driving you and Just another self-hating Canadian

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

It’s coal in your stocking, bucko
Santa shook like a bowl full of Jell-O at the Southlake Mall in suburban Atlanta, but not in a good way. Police in Morrow, Ga., say 45-year-old William C. Caldwell III dressed as an elf and waited an hour in line to have his picture taken with St. Nick. When he reached the man in red, Caldwell, looking very elfin at five feet tall and 108 lb., said he was packing dynamite in his bags. Santa called security. The mall was evacuated but no explosives were found. The naughty elf faces a variety of charges and the prospect of Christmas behind bars.

The other shoe drops
Two Iraqi journalists are now one shoe short of a pair. Muntazer al-Zaidi, who famously chucked a shoe at former U.S. president George W. Bush, has himself become a target of flying footwear. Zaidi was speaking at a news conference in Paris when an exiled Iraqi journalist, arguing in favour of U.S. policy, hurled a shoe at Zaidi. Zaidi’s outraged brother attempted to rough up the fleeing journalist, who wasn’t immediately identified. And Zaidi later complained, “He stole my technique.”

Son of a Terminator
If the rumours are true, Tallulah Willis, 15, is dating Patrick Schwarzenegger, 16. Doesn’t that have the makings of the ultimate teen-romance action flick? Willis shares her time with daddy Bruce Willis, and with mom Demi Moore and her hubby Ashton Kutcher. And Schwarzenegger’s dad, Arnold, is the governator of California. The New York Post says the pair started dating at Halloween. A rep for Bruce Willis denies it, but dads are always the last to know. Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

So a blond walks into a courtroom

Mississauga, Ont., native Jordan Wimmer cleared more than $1 million last year working for Nomos Capital, a London-based hedge fund. But all was not a bed of roses for the attractive, 29-year-old blond financier. Indeed, her blondness is at the heart of her $7-million wrongful dismissal suit against her multi-millionaire boss Mark Lowe. Sexist jokes, piggish behaviour and even an attempt to run her down on the street were part of a campaign of harassment, Wimmer testified last week. She told a London employment tribunal that Lowe made cutting personal remarks, emailed sexist “dumb blond” jokes throughout the office and cavorted in front of her with a stripper, causing her to suffer depression and an eating disorder. Lowe accused Wimmer of “gross distortions,” though he admits “entirely as a joke” to calling her “decorative” and a “dumb blond.” As for his emailed gag about a blond confusing a Corn Flakes box with a jigsaw puzzle, he says that “feeble joke” wasn’t told at her expense. Depending on the tribunal’s sense of humour, the joke may be on Lowe. Continue…

George W. Bush unplugged

By John Parisella - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 6:18 PM - 25 Comments

Call it a motivational series or a legacy-burnishing tour: President George W. Bush has been on a cross-Canada speaking tour conveying the lessons he learned over the course of his eight years in the White House. He governed through some of the most challenging crises in U.S. history and has been using the events to explain and defend the policies he implemented during those tumultuous times. Furthermore, his speaking tour serves as a prelude to the book he intends to publish next year. With Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld soon to publish their own accounts of the Bush years, it will be interesting to see if Bush’s view of his tenure differs in any substantial way with that of his collaborators. Historians and critics will surely have a field day parsing through the interpretations.

For the sake of full disclosure, I should note I acted as moderator for last week’s stop in Montreal. The event began with a speech by Bush and was followed by a conversation on topics related to his remarks and his overall presidency. It was not meant to be a substitute for a journalistic interview nor was it intended to be a debate on some of the more controversial aspects of his presidency. The segment with yours truly lasted approximately a half-hour and covered, among other topics, the events following 9-11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his view of the future of the Republican Party, and his own assessment of his achievements and shortcomings. Time being short, some topics like the financial meltdown and Canada’s role in the world were not covered.

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Rewarding Europe's favourite American

By The Editors - Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 3 Comments

Nineteen times in the past 108 years there was no winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. This includes the First and Second World Wars, when it was obviously impossible to present such an award, as well as other years when no suitable candidate was apparent. This should have been one of those years.

Barack Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize is hasty, incongruous and an embarrassment to all involved. Its only function appears to be the foisting of hypocritical European ideals onto American politics. As such, we could have done perfectly well without it. Continue…

Was Obama's Nobel for "awesomeness" and positive thinking?

By Anne Kingston with Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM - 42 Comments

On the weekend, Australia’s former foreign minister Alexander Downer weighed into the reaction to Barack Obama’s surprise win of the Nobel Peace Prize, calling it a farce that has discredited the award. Like Kanye West storming the stage of the MTV Video awards to express his anger when Taylor Swift beat out Beyonce, Downer pronounced Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, ignored after years of struggling for human rights in his country, a more worthy selection.

He isn’t alone. Response to Obama’s win has become a watershed that signals the official end of Obamamania and suggests the world’s most esteemed award might also be overrated. Lech Walesa, ex-president of Poland who won in 1983 summed up the most common all splendid oratory-no action yet criticism of Obama: “Well, there’s hasn’t been any contribution to peace yet,” he said, apparently not impressed by his cancelling the U.S. missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. “He’s proposing things, he’s initiating things, but he is yet to deliver.” Continue…

The Princess and the President, Cohen's collapse, and Senator McMahon?

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, September 25, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Zalm returns
Neither age nor scandal has slowed the ebullient former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm. The Zalm, looking a decade younger than his 75 years, has emerged from obscurity as a potent political force in the fight against B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s decision to implement a harmonized sales tax, or HST. Combining provincial and federal sales taxes is good for business, but it adds to the cost of everything from restaurant meals to new homes, which were exempt from provincial tax. Vander Zalm, who resigned in 1991 after mixing public and private business in the sale of his Fantasy Gardens theme park, pounced on the HST issue well before NDP Opposition Leader Carole James. He upstaged her again last Saturday as they both spoke at an anti-HST rally in Vancouver. He called it a “cruel tax” that piles extra costs on consumers, “particularly those who are packing the lunch bucket.” With his typical “Faaantasstic” grasp of facts, he estimated the crowd at 4,000 to 5,000 people. More dispassionate estimates put the number at 1,000 to 2,000, still enough to worry Campbell’s Liberals.

Bush league
It was tails and tales aplenty last week for new Dallas resident and former president George W. Bush. On Sunday, accompanied by his wife, Laura, Bush gave the coin toss (tails) for the Dallas Cowboys at the home opener in the team’s new $1.2-billion stadium. Its problematic giant video scoreboard, barely 27 m above the playing surface, has already inspired a new NFL rule: a replay of the down if punted balls hit the board. If presidents had do-overs, would Bush still have hired Matt Latimer as a speech writer? Latimer’s new book, Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor, dishes on Bush’s catty assessment of Washington power players. Of Joe Biden, now vice-president: “If bulls–t was currency, Joe Biden would be a billionaire.” On then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s run for the vice-presidency: “This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for.” Of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama: “This is a dangerous world, that cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it.” Of his own abilities, lest there be any doubt: “I was qualified.” Continue…

Where to draw the line?

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 8:50 PM - 14 Comments

Torture, like terrorism, is an issue that does not admit easily of complexity. The same people who mocked George W. Bush for his “black and white” thinking on terrorism (“you are either with us or you are with the terrorists”) stand ready to accuse anyone who confesses any uncertainty about the issue—what tactics may be permitted in interrogating terrorist suspects, whether the CIA’s treatment of detainees crossed the line, whether to prosecute those who did—of “defending torture.”

At the same time, any attempt to impose legal limits on the war on terror, to hold to account those who may have broken the law in the prosecution of their duties, invites equally lurid accusations from the other side—of criminalizing policy differences, of demoralizing the CIA, even of aiding the terrorists. So it is a probable testament to the political independence, if not the political judgment, of the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, that he was willing to wade into this swamp. His boss may come to wish he hadn’t. Continue…

McCain v. Bush, Canada's old torch, and Gov. Schwarzenegger's stimulus plan

By Lianne George - Friday, September 4, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

In a Toronto minute
Former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant was charged on Tuesday with criminal negligence causing death after an altercation he was involved in Monday night ended in tragedy. Bryant had allegedly been driving his black convertible Saab in Toronto’s swanky Yorkville neighbourhood around 9:45 p.m. when he collided with a cyclist, 34-year-old Darcy Allen Sheppard, and an argument ensued. Witnesses told police that at one point the cyclist hung onto the driver’s side of the car while the driver swerved into the oncoming lane, sped up, and drove up onto the curb in an effort to shake the cyclist off. Eventually, the cyclist let go after hitting a mailbox. He fell off the car in front of Sephora, the cosmetics emporium, with severe head trauma, and died later that night. Leaving the police department on Tuesday afternoon, Bryant tearfully made a brief public statement: “I want to extend my deepest condolences to the family of Mr. Sheppard,” he said.

Hacked
Apparently, not even the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve is safe from identity theft. Last week, officials revealed that Ben Bernanke and his wife, Anna, were victims of identity theft last year when Anna’s purse was stolen from a Starbucks in Washington. “Our family was but one of 500 separate instances traced to one crime ring,” Bernanke said. In fact, identity theft has become so rampant that it even happens right under the government’s nose. In Miami, a former government “hacker hunter” stands accused of committing the largest cases of identity theft in U.S. history. Albert Gonzales, 28, is alleged to have stolen more than 170 million credit card and debit card numbers. First arrested for hacking in 2003, Gonzales managed to avoid punishment by agreeing to become a Secret Service informant. For the past five years, he has allegedly divided his time between hacking into the systems of Fortune 500 companies and stealing information, and helping the feds bust other hackers. Gonzales is currently negotiating a plea bargain. “My client is extremely remorseful as to what has happened,” his lawyer told the Associated Press. Continue…

Newsmakers: Moving in

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

George W. Bungalow
After eight years in the White House, the former U.S. president is the proud owner of a brown house. George and Laura (and a few Secret Service agents) are the newest additions to Preston Hollow, an upscale Dallas neighbourhood where the Bushes bought a bricked, ranch-style bungalow for US$3 million. It’s the perfect, peaceful place for W. to write his memoirs—if a publisher ever decides to buy them.

Conan the Californian
For Conan O’Brien, replacing Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show meant more than moving time slots. It also meant moving his wife and two children from New York to Los Angeles—to a US$10.5-million mansion complete with a pool, spa, six fireplaces and a 1,500-bottle wine room. Andy Richter does not live in the guest house. Continue…

Unlike father, unlike son

By John Parisella - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 2:21 PM - 5 Comments

The recent edition of Time magazine contains a story describing the last days of the Bush-Cheney Administration. By then, Dick Cheney had developed a near-singular focus on obtaining a pardon for his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby. The issue was one of only a few on which George W. Bush disagreed with with his second-in-command. Libby had been found guilty of lying to investigators looking into the Valerie Plaine incident, in which Plame was outted as a CIA agent by officials in the administration. Cheney’s aide was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and to pay a fine of $250,000. President Bush, who had earlier vowed that he would fire anyone involved in the incident, decided to commute Libby’s prison term, to much criticism from the Democrats and the press. His decision nonetheless upheld the conviction, leaving Libby, a former high-profile lawyer, facing permanent disbarment.

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Sarkozy's U.S. love-fest hits a few snags

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 3:50 PM - 0 Comments

Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as president of France two years ago was welcomed by many in London and Washington tired of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who looked on both America and Britain with a disdain he didn’t bother to conceal.

Sarkozy seemed different. His apparent love for America propelled him to Maine after only a few months in office to eat hot dogs and tool around in a speedboat with then-president George W. Bush. Whereas many French politicians refer to the “Anglo-Saxon” economic model in tones that suggest they might as well be speaking of some sort of plague, Sarkozy said France would learn from Britain as it sought to reform its economy. On a state visit to London last year, he said he wanted a new “Franco-British brotherhood.” And in March Sarkozy announced that France would rejoin NATO’s integrated military command—a move that Roland Hureaux, writing in the left-wing Marianne magazine, predicted would please those who hoped “Sarko the American” would “castrate France once and for all.”

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Can I see your passport, Mr. President?

By Steve Maich - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 8:22 PM - 13 Comments

C’mon. Did we really expect one of them to say something unkind?

About 5,000 people paid between $100 and $200 for a ticket to “A conversation with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton,” today at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and every single one of them came hoping for at least a little jousting on foreign policy, or taxes, or even just a taste of old-fashioned partisan ribbing. But no. The only jokes were self-deprecating. The only disagreements were measured and respectful. “I have a different take on that” was about as pointed as it got.

To be fair, Clinton undercut the confrontational atmosphere right off the top. “You imagine this is a 21st century version of the Roman Coliseum. You expect us to attempt to devour each other. Frank McKenna (the moderator) will attempt to meet your expectations. We’ll do our best to thwart them,” he said. Continue…

The Bush Hangover

By John Parisella - Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:15 PM - 10 Comments

It is hard to underestimate the imprint George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” speech left on U.S. foreign policy. The story has been unfolding ever since, with the invasion of Iraq, the disengagement from bilateral talks with North Korea that had been started under the Clinton Administration, and the continuing alienation from an emerging regional, and possibly nuclear, power in Iran. The Iraq war quickly degenerated into an anti-insurgency operation that remains far from a conclusive; North Korea has once again provoked the ire of the world with its nuclear tests; and, as for Iran, with an election currently underway, it may not be the ideal time for the U.S. to radically alter its approach, but its nuclear enrichment program remains an ongoing source of worry. In the meantime, events in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan have become grounds for serious concern. I know it appears all too easy to blame Bush and Cheney for all this, but eight years of misguided policies cannot be reversed overnight or even in the first year of a new presidency, however well-intentioned or promising it may be.

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A tale of two Iraq wars

By Philippe Gohier - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 4:43 PM - 1 Comment

Along with Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Robert Gates, Richard Haass is one of only a handful of people to have been at the highest rungs of the U.S. government for both Iraq wars. Haass was a special advisor to George H. W. Bush when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, and served as the director of policy planning in the State Department when the younger Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. In his new book, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Haass argues that, despite their similarities, the two wars are marked by one crucial difference: whereas the first military operation in Iraq was borne of obligation, the second war was elective. Haass left the State Department in 2003 to become the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Q: Is there a moral distinction to be made between wars of necessity and wars of choice?

A: No. Wars of choice can be moral. For example, many people would argue that what the West did in Bosnia and Kosovo was truly moral even though it was a war of choice. And I expect there would be those who would go so far as to say that when the world chose not to intervene in Rwanda was immoral.

Wars of choice are just that—they’re choices. Usually, the interests involved are less than vital and there are other policy options. To me, though, it’s not a question of morality. When I call something a “war of choice,” it’s simply a description. It’s not a value judgment.

Q: Along with Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, you’ve also said Vietnam was a war of choice. Do modern wars tend to be wars of choice?

A: There’s nothing particularly modern about discretionary wars. I haven’t done a thorough study, but I would bet that most wars in history are wars of choice.

But after 9/11, the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was a war of necessity. If North Korea attacked South Korea tomorrow, that would obviously be a war of necessity.

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Barack Obama's 100 days of ‘change’

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, April 27, 2009 at 10:00 PM - 2 Comments

In the span of 100 days in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped his exile on the island of Elba, regained the crown of emperor, and then went down to eventual defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his first 103 days in office to launch an array of emergency legislation that remade the American economy and created the New Deal—in the process drawing comparisons to the fast-moving Corsican. Since then, it has been a ritual to judge presidents on their first 100 days—the period when maximum energy pulsates through the White House, with a new president enjoying public support and still far enough away from congressional mid-term elections that he can get the tough things done.

George W. Bush’s first 100 days appeared competent, if modest: he launched an initiative to allow faith-based groups to access government money for social programs, abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, initiated an energy task force, and began the push for education reform and tax cuts. Bill Clinton’s first 100 days were rockier: he succeeded in pushing through Congress a massive budget in record time but became mired in controversies over cabinet appointments, gays in the military, and the ill-fated health care reform led by his wife. Continue…

The Debate On Torture

By John Parisella - Monday, April 27, 2009 at 4:50 PM - 10 Comments

With fears of a potential swine flu epidemic sweeping the world, and with the report cards coming in on Obama’s first 100 days, you would think the debate on the torture memos from the Bush–Cheney era would be off the table. It is possible that White House officials believed Obama’s preference that we learn from them and move on would be enough to circumscribe the issue and carry the day. But they were living in fantasyland if they believed that this dramatic news item would be a one week wonder. In fact, it was the president’s about face on prosecution that kept the news story going and will probably make it a dominant issue throughout the next 100 days.

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'Western democracies do not engage in torture to gather information'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 5:05 PM - 11 Comments

In between casting aspersions on Michael Ignatieff, that’s what Peter Van Loan told the public safety committee two weeks ago: “Information that has been obtained by torture is not reliable. It should not be relied upon. There is ample understanding in the world that this is the case. That’s why western democracies do not engage in torture to gather information, because it is not reliable. It’s also because it’s a fundamental violation of human rights, but the probative value is limited as well.” 

To that effect, a little over a year ago, Maxime Bernier ordered that mention of the United States be removed from a Foreign Affairs manual that cautioned diplomats about countries that were known to have engaged in torture. ”I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department’s torture awareness training,” Bernier said. ”It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten.”

Unfortunately, here is the latest round of Bush-era torture memos, a carefully laid out explanation of what the previous American administration said could be done to detainees under the guise of information gathering.