In the article, The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror, referring to the Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel's notorious torture memos, "These techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail."

This is called begging the question, implying that whatever the director says is legal when it obviously is not. They avoid the fact that the law determines what is legal, not the director.

Quoting further from the article, "The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy."

The release of the torture memos was not a legal matter, it was done as a sound policy of uncovering and exposing the illegality of the Bush administration.

"...it was certainly the president's right to suspend use of any technique."

Obama must be greatly relieved that these guys have given him the right to do what he already had not only the right but the legal obligation to do.

The release of the torture memos, "assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U. S. government could do to extract information from them."

It actually assures the terrorists that the United States under the Bush administration had no limit, absolute or not, on what they would do to extract information from them. This ensures that any US personnel captured by the terrorists will be treated likewise.

"President Obama has tied not only his own hands but also the hands of any future administration faced with the prospect of attack."

Well, I would certainly hope so. I would hope that President Obama or any future president would gladly limit themselves to following the law.

"Disclosure of the techniques...will also incur the contempt of our enemies."

"Will?" As if our enemies don't already have contempt for us because of the use of the techniques.

The terrorists are likely to be, "shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U. S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle."

Keeping someone awake for 11 days is seen by Hayden and Mukasey as only interrupting the sleep cycle. As if sleep cycles occur only once every 11 days.

"...fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from these interrogations."

Yeah, and these two Bush appointees are just as credible with this claim as Bush was about his false claim about the WMD in Iraq.

"Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself."

We will be fortunate if we only ever have one president, George Bush, who wanted to apply such techniques, and was wholly and completely unprepared to apply them himself. He let others do it for him.

Opinions from the OLC are, "now more likely than before to be subject after the fact to public and partisan criticism."

Actually, now that we have a Democratic instead of a Republican president, opinions from the OLC are more likely than before to be subject to and reflect the law.

And finally, in their attempt at distortion and obfuscation, "In his book 'The Terror Presidency,' Jack Goldsmith describes the phenomenon we are now experiencing, and its inevitable effect, referring to what he calls 'cycles of timidity and aggression.'"

What Hayden and Mukasey failed to mention is that Goldsmith resigned after 9 months after a failed attempt to moderate what he considered the constitutional excesses of the legal policies embraced by his White House superiors.

Also glaringly and obviously missing completely from their article is any mention of the Geneva Convention, that it is the law of the United States, and that it specifically prohibits the torture that they refer to exclusively as "techniques" and that they are so proud of.

If we are ever to see justice done and the people who wrote the torture memos are prosecuted for conspiring to and aiding and abetting torture, then this article is the document giving, in their own words, their approval and condoning of the torture. They were in charge of it happening and they were legally obligated to see that it was stopped and the torturers were prosecuted.

They did not do that, instead they have joined with the torturers and self-confessedly made themselves subject to prosecution.

Hayden and Mukasey should heed Ari Fleischer's admonition when he was trying to suppress the free speech of those protesting the illegal policies of the Bush administration: "Watch what you say." They are so arrogant and sure of themselves that they have no realization that what they've said here can be used as evidence and cause them to wind up in court, trying to deny that they ever said any such thing.

But, here it is, in their own words. I'll keep a copy handy, just in case.