Getting Cute

President Bush starts flirting with open advocacy of torture:

When Mr. Bush was asked whether he considered waterboarding illegal, he said he would not discuss specific methods used in the interrogation of suspected terrorists. “It doesn’t make any sense to tell the enemy whether we use those techniques or not,” he said.

“And the techniques we use by highly trained professionals are within the law,” the president said. “That’s what’s important for America to know.”

What doesn't make sense here is the answer. Expressing an opinion on the legality of waterboarding isn't the same as saying whether or not waterboarding is used. And besides which, everybody knows waterboarding is used. But to illustrate the difference, our best understand is that Bush thinks it would be legal for him to order Sean Hannity detained indefinitely and incommunicado without charge, whereupon he'd be subject to torture, and evidence acquired through torturing Hannity could perhaps be used as a justification for wiretapping Rush Limbaugh's phones, but he clearly seems to have decided that he doesn't want to actually do those things.