NBC's Lauer playing gotcha games

NBC's Lauer to Cheney: You're the 'Most Divisive Political Figure in This Country in a Century'



The network also showed this protest sign for viewers to see. Evidently, Lauer wants to score some political points for his favorite political party which is having a hard time at the moment.

Torture is a loaded word.  Considered in the context in which it occurred, it would seem that this is a bit overstated use of the term.  It has been said that no rights are absolute.  Rights have to be balanced against other rights.  That would include the right of the innocent to be safe and secure within one's own home.

It is the government's responsibility to secure the nation against terroristic threats of the kind that destroyed the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001, and killed 3000 people.

The number two man in charge was waterboarded for the purpose of obtaining information that could forestall any attacks of a similar kind.  It would not seem too unreasonable to suggest that a waterboarding can be justified if it meant saving thousands of lives in a similar attack elsewhere.  In short, one does not expect to be waterboarded.  But on the other hand, one does not expect to be killed for doing nothing but minding your own business.  To be waterboarded for the purpose of saving lives does not seem too draconian a step to take in order to prevent such a situation.

Waterboarding is not fatal.  It doesn't leave scars.  It isn't unpleasant for that long.  A tough guy like KSM should be able to handle it.  If not, he should get into another line of business.  I would think that others like him may be dissuaded from attempting any future attacks of the kind KSM masterminded if he knew that there was a high degree of probability that he would be captured and subjected to this type of treatment.  That alone would make the practice acceptable.

The rest of the point Lauer is trying to make would be purely hypothetical.  He was talking to Cheney about the past.  All Cheney would say is that to his knowledge, no such event happened while he was in office. Therefore, the question was hypothetical.  If Lauer wanted an answer to that question , he should ask Obama.

This was a cheap attempt to gain a political point.  He wanted to get Cheney to admit to torture and to say that it was wrong, and therefore, he, Cheney was wrong.  Within the context of what happened during those years, it is not so clear that it was wrong.  Something had to be done, and this was as good as anything else that could have been done.  Would Lauer have preferred that another attack occurred?