DOJ Lawyers Pulled Torture Definition from U.S. Healthcare Law

[Hissyspit]

Source: Talking Points Memo

DoJ Lawyers Pulled Torture Definition from U.S. Healthcare Law
By Paul Kiel - October 2, 2007, 12:40PM

This morning, Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to talk about his rocky time in the administration. Much of Goldsmith's difficulties, of course, centered around his efforts to revise earlier Department memos defining torture, such as the infamous 2002 "Bybee memo" (named after Goldsmith's predecessor Jay Bybee) that defined torture as "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Goldsmith called that reasoning "severely flawed."

During today's hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Goldsmith where that definition had come from. "It came from a health care statute designed to define the circumstances under which there was an emergency situation warranting health care benefits," he answered. He explained that "severe pain" is hard to define, and so the lawyers likely cast around for a way to define it -- but that the health care code probably wasn't the best place to look.

Read more: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004352.php

[damntexdem]

1. Of course they didn't look in the best place to look.

They were and are committed to using the worst places to look -- and to supporting, and participating in, the worst practices possible.

[Supersedeas]

2. reaching for anything not matter how far fetched and remote