A voice says "Cry!," and I say "What shall I cry?"

I find, not surprisingly, that Molly Ivins says it for me.

I mention it only to praise it. Every word. Precisely what I wish I'd said.

She references John McCain, and the Israelis. Here is what they said:

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Torture does not work. The Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 said that the Israelis could not torture or practice cruel or inhumane people on the people they take prisoner. The Israeli defense officials who I have discussed this with say that it doesn't work and they use psychological techniques, and so, (1) it doesn't work, (2) it's so damaging to us in an image fashion, and (3) the next conflict we're in this government will use that same rationale to inflict serious injury to Americans who may become captive.

The story of one man who died in our custody is at that link, too. The lawyer investigating that death says this:

I have to believe that Vice President Cheney thinks torture works and that these methods work somehow, and they also think – and the other thing that is under-girding this fight is the White House at this point believes that the President needs to have completely unfettered executive power to wage the war in any way he sees fit, and that none of the international laws or any of the constraints that might have been imposed by Congress are constitutional, as far as they're concerned. So this is really a lot about a theory of executive power that is, you know, imperial power practically.

And do members of this Administration think torture "works"? Absolutely:

I spoke last night with John Yoo, who used to be a lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, who wrote many of the guidelines on what can and can't be done. And he was speaking here in Washington and I talked to him for a little bit, and he said, “You know, torture works.” He said that we have a lot of information that we've gotten from terrorists by using these kinds of techniques. You know, what's interesting is almost every other expert that I've ever interviewed, people from the C.I.A., people from the F.B.I., they say you get unreliable information out of torture, and it doesn't work. In addition to the moral questions, it's not practical. But that's not what John Yoo thinks, and John Yoo was a very important member of the administration on this, so I think that is really what is beneath all of this.

The same people who told us Iraq had WMD, to fear the mushroom cloud, and that we would be greeted as "liberators."

Why do we still allow these people to be in charge of our government? Not a one of them is any more competent than Michael Brown.