Lamar Smith: ‘99% of Americans’ support waterboarding.

[rusty quoin]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/07/lamar-smith-99-of-americans-support-waterboarding/

When questioning Attorney General Michael Mukasey today, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) insisted that “99% of Americans would support” waterboarding, and emphasized that the Bush administration should “not be defensive about using” the technique:

In regard to interrogation techniques — and I know you’re going to be asked a lot of questions about that today — I just want to express the personal opinion that I hope the administration will not be defensive about using some admittedly harsh but nonlethal interrogation techniques, even techniques that might lead someone to believe they’re being drowned even if they’re not.

My guess is that 99 percent of the American people, if asked whether they would endorse such interrogation techniques to be conducted on a known terrorist with the expectation that information that might be derived from such interrogation would save the lives of thousands of Americans, that 99 percent of the American people would support such interrogation techniques.

As Paul Kiel points out, a recent CNN poll showed that 68% of Americans said waterboarding was torture, and 58% said the U.S. should not be allowed to use the technique against suspected terrorists.


There's nothing like a well informed congressman.

[mitchum]

1. Pity that Smith can't pull his head out of his ass with equal ease

[pingzing58]

2. Smith gets his statistics from "scientific polls" like Lou Dobbs does and makes outrageous claims.

Excuse me sir but no one ever polled anyone I know.

[leeroysphitz]

3. Fuck him. n/t

[spanone]

4. he's a liar

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. By all means, don't get defensive.

In fact, I think he should volunteer to make his case to the world court in the Hague. Really George, I double dog dare you.