This blog and several others immediately focused on the real news of the president's speech last Wednesday - that it would actually legalize torture, prevent the Supreme Court from striking it down, create a special CIA unit to perfect it, and grant legal impunity for Bush's civilian officials for any war crimes they may have committed since 9/11. At first, the MSM ran the stories the Bush team wanted: the headline-catching shift of KSM et al to Gitmo. But today, the NYT has the balls to point out that the president clearly lied in his accounts of two al Qaeda terrorists and their role in gaining intelligence. We also find a clear agreement between someone like Marty Lederman and someone like John Yoo about what the president's proposed law would do. Will some reporter please demand soon that the president answer specifics on techniques like waterboarding and the "cold cell"? If he wants to legalize these methods and call them not "torture" or compliant with Geneva, then let him say so in plain English in public and defend it. Let's get specific. Ask him on the record if he has authorized "waterboarding". Demand an answer. Get off the floor and fight back.