Torture Celebrities

Check out Dan Froomkin's condemnation of the last White House Correspondents' Association dinner of the Bush era: "the ultimate celebration of chumminess between the most powerful people in the world and those who are supposed to hold them accountable":

In the audience at the dinner and at its endless pre- and post-parties, a fin-de-siecle degeneracy was on full display. Throngs surrounded aging professional floozy Pamela Anderson, a guest of Bloomberg, who happily posed for countless photos in a dress that exposed the preponderance of her two most outstanding achievements. Key members of the White House's torture-management team-- Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state Colin Powell -- along with leading torture apologists -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey, CIA Director Michael Hayden, former White House spokesman Tony Snow and current spokeswoman Dana Perino -- were fawned over as honored guests.

And on that - here's a recent revelation from from the NY Times:

"The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act," said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.