Goldfarb:

“Tonight President Obama said he was “absolutely convinced” that he had made the right decision in putting an end to the use of the harsh interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration. After eight years of President Bush, it certainly is refreshing to have a leader who doesn’t let himself become entangled by complexity and nuance but instead has absolute certainty in the righteousness of his own decisions. Obama said that “we could have gotten this information in other ways — in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.” Maybe, but we’ll never know. And if there is another attack on this country, we’ll never know whether a more aggressive interrogation approach might have averted it.

Obama’s supple mind is still capable of nuance and complexity though, as evidenced by his answer to a question about abortion. Obama said abortion is “a moral issue and an ethical issue” and that women “struggle with these decisions each and every day.” Our president is clearly troubled by abortion, but not so troubled he would outlaw the practice. Instead the president wants “to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.”

There’s a striking contrast between these two answers. Perhaps Obama ought to try and think of waterboarding like he thinks of abortion — as something that ought to be kept safe, legal, and rare. A last resort when all else fails. Unfortunately, he’s now painted himself into a corner on the issue. Polling seems to indicate that the American public believes waterboarding is torture and also that it was justifiable. The president doesn’t have the luxury of holding such a contradictory position.”

Bravo, and true. There is no way with a straight face that one can defend “humane treatment” of terrorists, and yet allow drilling a late-term baby through the skull and call that “choice”. Can’t have it both ways, but yet Obama has always walked that route.

On interrogationI would go farther and ask, “What other ways” would he get information from detainees? What methods? Tickling, red-belly, noogies? Actually those would be considered “torture”, which – according to liberals – makes both my father and my other brother torturers.