Bush administration

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After 100 Days, Does Obama Beat Bush?
After 100 Days, Does Obama Beat Bush?
Apr 27, 2009 12:00 PM CDT

After 100 Days, Does Obama Beat Bush?

A look at approval ratings, community-by-community

(Newser) - After 100 days, President Obama is more divisive, more popular with moderates, and bigger with his base than George W. Bush was at this point—depending on where you look, the Christian Science Monitor finds in a look at 11 community types. Overall, Obama’s 63% Pew approval rating beats...

Ex-CIA Chief: Congress' Sudden 'Amnesia' a Joke
Ex-CIA Chief: Congress' Sudden 'Amnesia' a Joke
OPINION
Apr 25, 2009 2:46 PM CDT

Ex-CIA Chief: Congress' Sudden 'Amnesia' a Joke

(Newser) - The outrage on Capitol Hill against Bush-era interrogation policies is nothing more than a disingenuous “circus,” former CIA chief Porter Goss writes in the Washington Post. Goss, also a former congressman, says he and other senior lawmakers were briefed more than once about CIA tactics. “I do...

Bybee Rues Signature on Torture Memos

Friends say he regrets way the legal opinions were used

(Newser) - Jay Bybee has told friends and colleagues that he regrets his role as one of the authors of the so-called torture memos, the Washington Post reports. Most notably, Bybee, who's now a federal judge, signed off on the 2002 memo that authorized waterboarding. "I've heard him express regret at...

Leave Torture to Historians: Noonan
 Leave Torture 
 to Historians: 
 Noonan 
OPINION
Apr 24, 2009 10:02 AM CDT

Leave Torture to Historians: Noonan

(Newser) - On foreign policy, it’s “so far, so good” for President Obama’s first 100 days, writes Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal. (Domestically, “there are only so many ways to say ‘Oy.’”) But the torture debate appeared to catch the White House...

Photos of Bush-Era Prisoner Abuse to Be Released

ACLU request for release of Iraq, Afghanistan photos granted

(Newser) - The Obama administration is releasing dozens of photographs depicting prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq being abused by Americans, the Los Angeles Times reports. The photos are not believed to be as extreme as the images from the Abu Ghraib probe, but defense officials warn they may provoke an angry backlash...

Did Brutal Questioning Pay Off? The Battle Heats Up

(Newser) - President Obama says the harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA both compromised American values and provided unreliable information. “Those are a convenient pair of opinions,” notes Scott Shane of the New York Times. But it's not going to be that easy for the new administration to defend...

Condi Was First to OK Waterboarding

Condi gave go-ahead before Rumsfeld, Powell even knew about it: Senate

(Newser) - Condoleezza Rice played a greater role than she has acknowledged in the CIA's harsh interrogation program, and approved the use of waterboarding, according to a newly released report from the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report finds that Rice, as national security adviser, verbally approved the CIA's request to waterboard a...

Obama Rejected Idea of Interrogation Inquiry

(Newser) - More details are emerging from the Obama camp's debate on how to handle the Bush interrogation memos. In the Washington Post, Dan Balz writes that President Obama rejected the idea of setting up an investigation panel along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. Obama wanted to move on rather than...

FDA Will Let 17-Year-Olds Get 'Morning After' Pill

(Newser) - The Food and Drug Administration will allow 17-year-olds to get the "morning-after" birth control pill without a doctor's prescription. The agency said today it would not appeal a federal judge's recent order overturning restrictions imposed during the Bush administration. The judge had ruled that Bush appointees let politics, not...

US Readied Waterboarding as Early as 2001

Harsh tactics were readied even before suspects captured

(Newser) - The Bush administration prepared to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics widely considered to be torture 8 months before the Justice Department approved them, and even before capturing a high-level terrorist suspect, the Washington Post reports. A Senate investigation reveals these brutal interrogation methods were approved despite warnings that they...

Obama Open to Interrogations Probe

(Newser) - President Obama today said he’d be open to the idea of creating a panel to investigate the Bush administration’s interrogation methods in the war on terror. Obama and his aides have been dismissing the idea for weeks, but today in a press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan,...

Condi Commands Same Speaking Fee as Ex-Boss

$150,000 price tag shows Bush may not be biggest star of his own administration

(Newser) - Condoleezza Rice isn't playing second fiddle to George W. Bush any longer: The former secretary of state charges a $150,000 speaking fee—the same as her old boss, The Hill reports. Rice will even get a jump on the former president later this month when she addresses the Economic...

'Weighty' Torture Memo Decision Took Weeks

President's belief in rule of law won out in choice to release Bush-era memos

(Newser) - President Obama spent weeks thinking "very long and hard" about his "weighty decision" to release memos on harsh CIA interrogation techniques green-lighted by the Bush administration, senior adviser David Axelrod tells Politico. In the end, Axelrod says, the president's belief in transparency and the rule of law won...

Obama Releases Bush Memos Detailing Torture

Justice docs released detail OK'd techniques

(Newser) - A Bush-era memo on interrogation techniques acknowledged that waterboarding represented a “threat of imminent death,” but that the simulated-drowning procedure was not torture because it caused no lasting psychological harm, Reuters reports. The Justice Department memo and three others on interrogations were released to the public today—and...

CIA Waterboarders Won't Be Prosecuted
 CIA Waterboarders 
 Won't Be Prosecuted 
updated
Apr 16, 2009 1:56 PM CDT

CIA Waterboarders Won't Be Prosecuted

(Newser) - Seeking to move beyond what he calls a "a dark and painful chapter in our history," President Barack Obama said today that CIA officials who used harsh interrogation tactics during the Bush administration will not be prosecuted. Obama officials also released four secret memos detailing tactics against 28...

Chinese Influence Grows in Latin America

Deal by deal, Sino-South American relationships erode U.S. clout

(Newser) - Stepping into a gap created by the 1-2 punch of Bush administration neglect and worldwide recession, China is pumping billions of dollars into Latin America, helping to shore up slowing economies while the US plays catch-up in the region, the New York Times reports. "This is how the balance...

No Torture Trial for 'Bush Six': Spain's Top Cop

Case would turn courts into political 'plaything,' he says

(Newser) - Spanish prosecutors will recommend against opening an investigation into whether six Bush administration officials sanctioned torture against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the country’s attorney general said today. The case against former high-ranking figures like Alberto Gonzales was without merit, he said, because the men weren’t present when...

Spain to Indict Gonzales, 'Bush Six' Over Gitmo Torture

Prosecutors seek charges in US officials' Gitmo role

(Newser) - Spanish prosecutors will seek charges against Alberto Gonzales and five other Bush-administration officials over their role in torture at Guantanamo, the Daily Beast reports. The prosecutors plan to announce the probe into the so-called Bush Six today at Spain’s central criminal court. “The evidence provided was more than...

Bush Gang Will Reunite to Reflect on Legacy

(Newser) - The George W. Bush administration is planning a reunion in honor of the former president’s nascent policy institute, the New York Times reports. Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, speechwriter Michael Gerson, and White House counsel Dan Bartlett will meet the former president next week in Dallas for dinner and a...

On Environment, White House Quick to Undo Bush Policies

Staff unearths years of shelved proposals

(Newser) - More than a dozen environmental initiatives that stagnated under former President Bush are moving forward under Obama, the Washington Post reports. In most of those cases, the decisions were based on reports drafted over several years that, in the face of opposition, were placed on the back burner to await...

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