It didn’t take long for Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to claim that waterboarding was responsible for key information relating to “the courier for Obama” (can’t anybody get this guy’s name right?), a fact which, if true, would surely be promoted as vindication for the Bush-era interrogation techniques. Obama administration Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan weakly countered that claim, saying he had no knowledge of the use of that technique.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was also asked about this Tuesday afternoon: (transcript via email from The White House)

Q    Can you say if there has been any change in President Obama’s opposition to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques?

MR. CARNEY:  No change whatsoever.

Q    Were any results of such techniques used in helping to track down bin Laden?

MR. CARNEY:  Mark, the fact is that no single piece of information led to the successful mission that occurred on Sunday, and multiple detainees provided insights into the networks of people who might have been close to bin Laden.  But reporting from detainees was just a slice of the information that has been gathered by incredibly diligent professionals over the years in the intelligence community.  And it’s simply strange credulity to suggest that a piece of information that may or may not have been gathered eight years ago somehow directly led to a successful mission on Sunday.  That’s just not the case.

Q    I wasn’t suggesting it.  I was –

MR. CARNEY:  Okay.  Others have.

Later in the day, CIA chief Leon Panetta said it was an “open question” whether waterboarding was used to obtain some of the information, and Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, when asked the same question by The Last Word‘s Lawrence O’Donnell, went into a dissertation about how it was all a “mosaic” that would have made John Kerry say “Get to the f***ing point!”

All of this evasion and seeming contradiction gives a defensive impression, and the end result still ends up looking a lot like a “Yes!” So, if you’re not prepared to lie about it, and the answer is yes, you ought to just say “Yes, and it’s still wrong.”

Even barring that, you would think that with several years to think about it, they could have done better than telling their guys, “Just riff about mosaics for a few minutes.”

Worse yet, though, given the opportunity, McDonough doesn’t even hint that waterboarding is wrong. Asked by O’Donnell if this is a vindication of torture, McDonough essentially says, “Well, it wasn’t just the torture,” before returning to the mosaic theme.

That should have been a simple question to answer. “No, this doesn’t vindicate torture, because x, y, z…”

Unless the Obama administration is planning to pivot on waterboarding, their messaging is really shitting the bed right now, and they’re leaving a lot of daylight for torture proponents to gain ground.

Here’s the clip from The Last Word, with clips from the Panetta interview, and the full McDonough spot:

One suspects as he edges his way further into the media spotlight we may be hearing more remarks along the lines of what he told business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday. Bush admitted that his administration had waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that he’d do it again “to save lives.” Also? He has zero intention of returning to public life to criticize President Obama. From the Guardian:

“Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” the former president told a business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I’d do it again to save lives.”
[...]
In his speech, Bush also defended the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003. He said ousting Saddam Hussein “was the right thing to do and the world is a better place without him”. But he said he was not tempted to criticise Barack Obama. “You are not going to see me in the public square criticising the president.”
[...]
Bush also talked about the role of religion in his life. “I prayed a lot. I really did. I prayed before every major speech. I prayed before debates. It was a very important experience.”

I think it’s fair to say a lot of people are going to be lining up for a copy of this book.

Asked to respond to a range of harsh attacks on the Obama administration leveled by Cheney, Biden first gathered himself. “Let me choose my words carefully here,” he told David Gregory in a pre-taped interview for Sunday’s “Meet the Press.”

Then Biden let loose with several minutes of his most pointed criticism of Cheney since the 2008 presidential campaign, when Biden claimed that Cheney had “done more harm than any other single elected official in memory in terms of shredding the Constitution.”

Speaking to Gregory, Biden charged at least four times that Cheney was “rewrit[ing] history” with his recent attacks, and declared that President Obama has amassed a success rate in countering terrorism that “exceeds anything that occurred in the last Administration.”

ABC’s The Note has excerpts from Dick Cheney’s interview with This Week:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out at Vice President Biden’s assertion that another 9/11-style attack is unlikely. In an exclusive interview on “This Week,” he called Biden’s view “dead wrong.”

“I think, in fact, the situation with respect to Al Qaeda, to say, you know, that was big attack we had on 9/11 but it’s not likely again – I just think that’s just dead wrong,” Cheney said.

“I think the biggest strategic threat the United States faces today is the possibility of another 9/11 with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind. And I think Al Qaeda is out there – even as we meet – trying to do that,” Cheney said to ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

Hey – wouldn’t it be great if Biden and Cheney agreed to be on the same program so that they could debate with one another directly? Instead, they choose their own Sunday morning platform that will not allow for direct attacks from political foes. I’ll say it – wimps.

Transcript of this exchange (via Huffington Post):

DAVID GREGORY: Let me ask you about some of the criticism that’s been leveled at this Administration by former Vice President Dick Cheney. He has argued that this Administration has failed to treat the fight against terrorists as war. He cites the decision related to Khalid Sheik Muhammad to offer him a civilian trail as one example. Giving the Christmas Day Bomber the privileges of the American criminal justice system is another example. The decision to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison. What do you say?

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Let me choose my words carefully here. Dick Cheney’s a fine fellow. He’s entitled to his own opinion. He’s not entitled to rewrite history. He’s not entitled to his own facts. The Christmas Day Bomber was treated the exact way that he suggested that the Shoe Bomber was treated. Absolutely the same way. Under the Bush Administration there were three trials in military courts. Two of those people are now walking the streets. They are free. There were 300 trials of so-called terrorists and those who engage in terror against the United States of America who are in federal prison and have not seen the light of day. Prosecuted under the last Administration. Dick Cheney’s a fine fellow, but he is not entitled to rewrite history without it being challenged. I don’t know where he has been. Where was he the last four years of the last Administration?

DAVID GREGORY: What about the general proposition that the President according to former Vice President Cheney doesn’t consider America to be at war and is essentially soft on terrorism? What do you say about that?

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I don’t think the Vice– the Former Vice President Dick Cheney listens. The President of the United States said in the State of the Union, “We’re at war with Al Qaeda.” He stated this– and by the way, we’re pursuing that war with a vigor like it’s never been seen before. We’ve eliminated 12 of their top 20 people. We have taken out 100 of their associates. We are making, we’ve sent them underground. They are in fact not able to do anything remotely like they were in the past. They are on the run. I don’t know where Dick Cheney has been. Look, it’s one thing, again, to– to criticize. It’s another thing to sort of rewrite history. What is he talking about?

DAVID GREGORY: You have often said, when I’ve asked you and others, that you never impugn a man’s motives. But why do you think Dick Cheney is speaking out and being so critical of the President and the Administration so publicly?

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I don’t know. I– I– I’m not gonna guess about his motive. All I know is he’s factually, substantively wrong. On the major criticisms he is asserting. Why he’s insisting on that. He either is misinformed or he is misinforming. But the facts are that his assertions are not accurate.

DAVID GREGORY: You would not be this outspoken or critical when you’re out of office. Is that fair to say?

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, I– I– I would hope I– look, it’s one thing to be outspoken. It’s another thing to be outspoken in a way that misrepresents the facts. And I– I guess– again, I– it’s almost like Dick is trying to rewrite history. I can understand where the– why that would be– you know, an impulse. And maybe he isn’t– literally, I’m not being facetious. Maybe he’s not fully informed of what’s going on. I mean, the progress we have made. There has never been as much emphasis and resources brought against Al Qaeda. The success rate exceeds anything that occurred in the last Administration. And they did their best. I’m not– I’m not impugning their effort. It’s simply not true that the President of the United States is not prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda with a vigor that’s never been seen before. It’s real. It’s deep. It’s successful.

And here’s video of Cheney speaking on Joe Biden on ABC’s This Week:

Dick Cheney continues to be a thorn in Obama’s side that Obama can only ignore at his own peril. On last night’s Hannity, the former Vice President renewed his attacks on the current President over his decision to give 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who Cheney called “one of the most evil men in history,” a public trial in New York City.

As Cheney presents it, Obama is being naive and “radical” for his largely idealistic commitment to an open trial, whereas Cheney, the realist, knows better, and would give Mohammed a military trial in Guantanamo if he was in charge. This is all ground that has been trodden on before.

The boldest part of Cheney’s spiel, though, was his assertion that the trial would make “KSM,” as Cheney called him, “as important [as], or more important, than Osama bin Laden.” That is, the giant media platform that the trials will provide him with will let him reach millions worldwide with his anti-America message. There’s also the concern that some of the evidence against Sheikh Mohammed will be tainted, if it’s not thrown out entirely, because it was obtained by waterboarding him — which Cheney personally approved. Then again, Cheney and his supporters can point to the Justice Department memo — released by the Obama Administration — which asserts that a ‘9/11-type attack in Los Angeles‘ was prevented thanks to intelligence gathered by waterboarding Mohammed.

Whether or not Cheney will be proven correct in the end — and let’s hope, as he surely hopes himself, that he won’t be — Obama continues to brush aside his criticisms at his own peril. If the purpose of the New York City terror trials is as much about sending a message as it is about bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to justice, comparing one of their most vocal, politically distinguished critics to Rush Limbaugh and calling it a day just doesn’t cut it.

Last night, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow all took to the airwaves to criticize Republican lawmakers for their reluctance to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried before a civilian court in New York.

The trial seems poised to become the media spectacle we predicted it would this past weekend — but why? Do the left-right battle lines along which this seems to be falling even make sense?

First up: Chris Matthews, who spoke to Illinois Representatives Judy Biggert (R) and Jan Schakowsky (D). When Biggert voiced her opposition to the trial, Matthews, who has apparently been rewatching HBO’s John Adams miniseries a lot lately, lectured her on American history: (at about the 2:30 mark)

Matthews: Back in the beginnings of our country, we had a trial for the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and we gave those soldiers a real trial, and John Adams was their defense attorney. And a lot of them got off. Do you think that was a mistake to give them a real trial, or should we have just executed them. What should we have done?

Biggert: Well, I’m talking about having a real –

Matthews: Was it wrong to give a real trial to people who shot down our people in the Boston Massacre, or was that a good emblem of the kind of country we were going to be, a country of laws?

Biggert: I think –

Matthews: John Adams was their defense lawyer. Should he have not taken that job? Not defended the enemies of our country, and shown that we have a good system of law in this country? Was that a mistake?

The difference between then and now, of course, is terrorism. There’s a big difference between trying soldiers who are members of a clearly defined opposing army that fights according to a set of accepted military rules and trying terrorists who are members of a murkily defined network that has no qualms about killing civilians in any way possible.

Next page: Olbermann’s and Maddow’s takes

The core of the debate — and what we can expect to hear in the coming weeks and months — seems to center around a few basic ideas, namely Guantanamo Bay, torture and language.

Some have made the argument that the Obama administration is trying to demonstrate the American justice system to the extremists, or the developing nation’s from where many of these extremists come. And while this story is sure to garner a ton of attention in the Fata regions of Pakistan, for example, critics of this concept point out that is a non-starter. The appreciation of habeus corpus and a jury of one’s peers hasn’t worked too well so far, at least in the eyes of the those responsible for 9/11.

More likely, the Justice department is simply looking for an end game. If you believe, as some interpret the Constitution — that nobody can be held without a fair trial — then these guys must be tried. The risk here is that somehow they will be acquitted, though we’ve all read that Mohammed has admitted to being responsible for the planning of 9/11. But will that admission hold up given that we also know that he confessed while being water-boarded — which, is either torture or “harsh interrogation techniques,” depending on which networks you’re watching or what you’re reading?

Will Mohammed’s testimony hold up? And what happens if the trial is dismissed or he is acquitted? How can we detain a guy that we can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, to be guilty under the American system.

The way that this debate evolves has as much to do with language as politics and law. Are we at war? If we are at war and these are prisoners of war, aren’t we supposed to return them to their country according to the Geneva Convention? But they do not come from a “nation” as defined by the Geneva convention. So then, are we really at war — and if so, with whom? This leads some to say that we are trying these individuals criminally, which is a huge hot-button word on this subject.

Mediaite publisher Dan Abrams — also NBC’s chief legal analyst — addressed these very issues on MSNBC, calling the decision to try the suspects in a civilian court as opposed to a military commission “a tough call.” Check out the clip below:

And beyond the obvious political implications, questions of rhetoric and fairness also arise.

>>>NEXT: Can Sheikh Mohammed possibly receive a fair trial?