The Torture Administration

There is a key paragraph in today’s excellent front-page report in the New York Times concerning the secret White House memos that approved the use of torture in interrogating suspected terrorists:

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Now the world has learned of it.  The Rheinische Post picked up on this paragraph:

Gonzales’ Stellvertreter James B. Comey habe Bedenken gegen die Anweisung geäußert: Es sei beschämend, wenn die Welt davon erfahre. Comey musste sein Amt wegen Unstimmigkeiten mit dem Weißen Haus räumen.

But Mr. Comey was mistaken: they are not ashamed.  One needs some basic sense of morality to feel shame, and that is what is lacking in the Bush administration.