But if Kinsley strains logic by ignoring the fact that interrogations have a life-saving reason behind them, Richard Cohen assaults it still further by conceding they do save the lives of innocent people, while saying he still wants them stopped.

“Of course it works,” he admits, and goes on to say that “ceasing this foul practice will not in any way make Americans safer,” adding that Obama demoralized the CIA in the process, and “made things a bit easier for terrorists, who now know what will not happen to them if they get caught.” Presumably, it’s better for the national psyche and soul to forgo visiting stress on an enemy terrorist, and end up with another smoking hole in another America...

But if Kinsley strains logic by ignoring the fact that interrogations have a life-saving reason behind them, Richard Cohen assaults it still further by conceding they do save the lives of innocent people, while saying he still wants them stopped.

“Of course it works,” he admits, and goes on to say that “ceasing this foul practice will not in any way make Americans safer,” adding that Obama demoralized the CIA in the process, and “made things a bit easier for terrorists, who now know what will not happen to them if they get caught.” Presumably, it’s better for the national psyche and soul to forgo visiting stress on an enemy terrorist, and end up with another smoking hole in another American city, filled with the smoking ashes of 3,000 people.

Then he says he doesn’t want to compare Bush to Hitler, and then does it anyhow, saying the legal memos from the president’s lawyers resemble the “squalid efforts of legal toadies” to justify evil that one saw in the Third Reich at war.

Once upon a time, literate and intelligent people understood the difference between attack and defense, assault and pre-emption, and the use of force to conquer, destroy, enslave, or cause pain to large numbers of innocents; and the use of force deployed on aggressors to deflect or prevent the slaughter of thousands, to reverse an invasion, or to end a war others began. Once upon a time, they understood that presidents don’t have the luxury of indulging their qualms at the expense of their countrymen.

Once upon a time, American presidents believed that their first job was protecting the country and people, which is the reason why John Kennedy, an aspiring war criminal, by some critics’ standards, thought he would have deserved being impeachment if he left American cities on the East Coast of the country vulnerable to attack by Soviet missiles in Cuba. And between 1942 and 1945, Americans in foreign countries shot and bombed people without reservation or mercy, while in Los Alamos scientists worked night and day to produce weapons of vast and unheard of destructi...

Once upon a time, American presidents believed that their first job was protecting the country and people, which is the reason why John Kennedy, an aspiring war criminal, by some critics’ standards, thought he would have deserved being impeachment if he left American cities on the East Coast of the country vulnerable to attack by Soviet missiles in Cuba. And between 1942 and 1945, Americans in foreign countries shot and bombed people without reservation or mercy, while in Los Alamos scientists worked night and day to produce weapons of vast and unheard of destructive capacity. And people voted for Roosevelt anyhow, who was a war criminal, exactly like Truman, and Bush.

Examiner columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”