Matt Yglesias

24 Responses to “Bybee’s Friends Say He Regrets The Torture Stuff”

1. gregor Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 11:54 am

   Perhaps he can take the approach suggested by the good Senator from Iowa in another context.

2. Jeffrey Davis Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm

   What’s preventing him from resigning?

3. max Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

   If he really does feel remorse, it seems like the appropriate course of action would be for him to resign from the federal bench and go public with everything he knows about the situation.

   A little remorse. Not that much remorse. That much remorse would be like, you know, HUGE. Career-derailing remorse, wow, he’d have to have had… actually, based on the track record, I don’t think anybody has that much remorse, not in America.

   If his own friends won’t bother to deny that what he did was wrong, then what’s the case for not removing him?

   He was wrong in good faith, and also, he’s a Republican. And white. And upper class. So, you know, people like that aren’t real criminals. Newt Gingrich said so!

   max
   ['You could ask him!']

4. Paul Camp Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

   Who the hell cares how sad he is? He wrote it, he signed it, he owns it. For someone who teaches a course on the importance of separation of powers, this sounds like crocodile tears.

5. brent Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

   Honestly hard to know because it was obviously hearsay, but whats in that WP article is not really much of an expression of remorse.

   I’ve heard him express regret at the contents of the memo

   Regret about the contents of the memo? That is a pretty strange formulation but it isn’t really an expression of regret over the opinion as much as its meant to sound that way.

6. James Gary Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:41 pm

   There is not enough contemptuous snark in the universe for me to give Mr. Bybee the response he desrves.

7. Consumatopia Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:41 pm

   You shouldn’t even need to feel remorse to resign after doing something like this. Even if we believe “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”, it remains the sole source of your authority as a government official.

   If you’ve sworn an oath to do something as a condition of your office, but later discover that doing that something will cost millions of lives, then perhaps you should break your oath. But once the oath is broken, you have no right to keep that position.

8. El Cid Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

   “I deeply regret that any of my words or actions have been interpreted by you in such a way as to inconvenience me.”

9. pseudonymous in nc Says:
   April 25th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

   Boo fucking hoo-bee.

10. Comment Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Bybee being a Judge – Is like the Hunchback of Notre Dame teaching a Pilates class.

11. Comment Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    Btw – Peter King should ask some of his many friends in
    the Irish Republican Army were dissuaded
    from the Cause by torture used by British
    for the last 100 years or so.

    King is slob.

12. Mimikatz Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Bybee probably does feel remorse. He was bulldozed by Cheney and John Yoo, his subordinate, who was willing to give Cheney what he wanted. I probably really did get away from him. And it certainly was terrible scholarship.

    But here’s the thing. Personal responsibility and basic moral values are important–maybe the most important things. Republicans are always telling the rest of us that. People who commit vehicular manslaughter are usually remorseful too, but we don’t let them off if they tell friends they are sorry. We hold them responsible so that other people will think twice about doing this kind of thing in the future.. It really is about who we are going forward–do we let these guys off and send the message to future would-be torturers and torture enablers that no one will do more than print their name in the paper as a bad guy?

    If Bybee wants to do the right thing, he should finger those who made him do it.

13. Jay Bybee Apparently Regrets Writing Those Torture Memos « The Good Democrat Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    [...] Matt Yglesias: Maybe this business about Jay Bybee feeling bad about what he’s done in terms of putting in place a brutal system of torture is even accurate. If he really does feel remorse, it seems like the appropriate course of action would be for him to resign from the federal bench and go public with everything he knows about the situation. [...]

14. LFC Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    Bill Clinton was disbarred for lying about having legal, consensual sex. I think Bybee should be impeached and disbarred for legal malpractice.

15. efgoldman Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    @ 2 davis
    What’s preventing him from resigning?

    You mean, other than a guaranteed lifetime salary, and a similar pension if he ever decides to retire? That and: he’s a conservative republican. Laws, ethics and responsibility don’t apply.

16. tib Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    The WaPo article reads like those interviews of people who knew serial killers: “he seemed like such a nice guy.”

17. Duncan Kinder Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    Question: What is the difference between the United States treatment of its war criminals and Serbia’s.

    Answer: In the United States, Bybee openly holds the honored position of federal judge. In Serbia, Radovan Karadžić had to adopt a false identity which the Serbs at could pretend not to know.

18. Ed Marshall Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    So when he gets snubbed at cocktail parties for being an unindicted war criminal is it pain or suffering? You need to delink the two.

19. johnnyk Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    I guess this steel-trap legal mind didn’t think things through when so he eagerly did his masters’ bidding to get himself a Kibble.
    Didn’t some Repub once exhort people to “Just say no”?

20. The Fool Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    the tears of a crocodile

21. alan Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    now that i have reached the job that is one step below the pinnacle of my chosen profession, and it is clear that my previous actions will prevent me from ever reaching that pinnacle, I guess I do feel sorta kinda bad for what I had to do to get here.

22. brendan Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 9:39 pm

    i for one feel much better knowing bybee is ready to say ’sorry’ to all his victims.
    this will be a comfort to them (assuming they all survived).

23. SteveL Says:
    April 26th, 2009 at 8:29 am

    What Mimikatz said.

    The other thing is that Bush presumably never would have appointed him the the 9th Circuit had Bybee not been compliant. So, he owes his present position to his acquiesence to Addington et al.

    Resignation is totally appropriate in that light.

24. johnnyk Says:
    April 26th, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    Yes, SteveL,
    he sucked hard and swallowed for that job.
    I feel his pain, but not the way some people did.