Yesterday George W. Bush spoke in Michigan and offered this defense for authorizing torture, according to CNN:

[Bush] described how he proceeded after the capture of terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003.

"The first thing you do is ask what's legal?" Bush said. "What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, 'I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.' I can tell you that the information we got saved lives."

But there's one glaring problem with Bush's defense: he first authorized torture in January 2002 when he took Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi away from the FBI and gave him to George Tenet's CIA to send to Egypt for torture.

And on February 7, 2002, Bush signed a memo stating the Article 3 protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees, which opened the door for all U.S. troops to torture any prisoners they decided to call "Al Qaeda" or "Taliban." The disastrous results were entirely predictable, and Bush is entirely guilty.