Re: Give me a Break

Not sure how I missed this, but John Cornyn asked Eric Holder Noah Feldman’s ticking time bomb question at yesterday’s hearing: 

Cornyn: I just want to propose a hypothetical for you, lets say that as Attorney General you find out there are terrorists who have access to chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and that you have a detainee who is in possession of information that if disclose would prevent those weapons from being detonated in the United States and thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of innocent people being killed. You would still refuse to condone aggressive interrogation techniques like waterboarding which, under my hypothetical, would save tens of thousands of lives?

Holder replies that waterboarding is not the only interrogation technique. Hilarity ensues:

Cornyn: Assume that it was.

HOLDER: I think your hypothetical assumes a premise that I’m not willing to concede.

CORNYN: I know you don’t like my hypothetical.

HOLDER: No, the hypothetical’s fine; the premise that underlies it I’m not willing to accept, and that is that waterboarding is the only way that I could get that information from those people.

CORNYN: Assume that it was.

HOLDER: Given the knowledge that I have about other techniques and what I’ve heard from retired admirals and generals and FBI agents, there are other ways in a timely fashion that you can get information out of people that is accurate and will produce useable intelligence. And so it’s hard for me to accept or to answer your hypothetical without accepting your premise. And in fact, I don’t think I can do that.

Words do not do this exchange justice. You simply must watch it for yourself:

Highlight of the video: everyone in the chamber laughs after Cornyn asks, for a second time, that Holder except his hypothetical that waterboarding is the only interrogation technique that could save lives in a ticking time bomb scenario. 

They’re not laughing with you Senator. They’re laughing at you.