Interrogations

Giving the Torture Judge the Boot

Liberals rally to impeach Jay Bybee.

President Obama and other Democratic bigwigs may have nixed a truth commission on torture, but liberal activists are rallying around another cause: The impeachment of Jay Bybee, the federal judge who, as the head of President Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel, advised that waterboarding was not torture. An impeachment of Bybee would be difficult for Congressional Republicans or conservative Senate Democrats to stop. “If the House votes for it, there’s no way the Senate can avoid it,” says a former Senate parliamentarian. The liberal establishment has been getting behind the idea: The New York Times editorialized in favor of Bybee’s impeachment, while John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress and the chief of President Obama’s transition team, also came out in favor of impeachment. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said last week “we’re coming after these guys.”