The XX Factor: What women really think.

Yes, we tortured. Who is responsible?

But having my current government release the evidence is a strange kind of relief, sunlight coming out of the clouds. A few weeks ago, I attended a panel on the the executive response to 9/11. Ann Compton, the only reporter on Air Force One on 9/11 (after My Pet Goat), moderated Andrew Card, Michael Chertoff, Douglas Feith, Tim Flanigan, and Ari Fleischer—all of whom had been intimately involved in the response to the bombings. (John Yoo was in the audience.) Let me say that it was agony remembering 9/11, feeling again that scorched and distraught feeling we all had from being attacked. I was awestruck as they told what 9/11 had felt like from the inside—believing that there were more planes in the air, ready to hit, and not knowing what to do to prevent more attacks. They told unanimously about being given a single policy directive: This must never happen again. Stop another attack at any cost. There was no countervailing interest.

But that scorched feeling inside me quickly worsened into feeling almost too sick to listen, knowing how that prime directive had forced my country far off course, away from morality. We were a small audience of journalists selected for our interest in constitutional law, and so we were soon drilling them about the constitutionality of their responses. How could the administration have authorized and implemented torture, indefinite detention, the suspension of habeas corpus, the destruction not just of the Taliban but of Afghanistan itself (that last a paraphrase of an Afghani journalist's question)?

My question: How they could have been so certain that anyone they picked up on the battlefield had to be guilty? Why should citizens be expected to believe that our government was omniscient, knowing in advance who should never see daylight again? Chertoff answered that on a battlefield, they would have been permitted to kill anyone there; where should the line be drawn between what was permitted in battle and what was permitted to people picked up in battle? Then Flanigan looked directly into my eyes and said, essentially: We were the lawyers. We did what we were asked to do. If you want to hold someone responsible, look to the policymakers.

That disavowal took my breath away. (As did the moment Feith looked straight into the eyes of the Afghani journalist and said: Our goal was to prevent an another attack on the U.S. We were successful. In other words, your country = not my problem.) Afterward, law professor Sherilynn Ifill, who was sitting next to me, said: If I were to convene a truth commission, Flanigan is the first one I'd call. He's ready to name names.

Get Out Those Xmas Lists

For those of you still suffering from post-holiday doldrums, or recovering from sticker shock over post-holiday credit card bills, or already thinking about Christmas 2009—even if in a post-economic meltdown mindset—here's a gift idea to file away for your Xmas shopping list under "practical" or "unique" or even "exclusive yet affordable." A simple yet elegantly titled book called Selected Speeches by Michael Chertoff, our former homeland security chief, is now available for only a select few in Washington.  

In it, Chertoff, who was not known for possessing soaring Obama-style oratory skills or for being a dynamic speaker who engages his audiences, regales readers with various speeches he made during his tenure. It includes such stunningly beautiful prose as:

If we are going to arrive at a day when terrorism no longer casts a dark cloud over the civilized world, we have to be prepared to advance international cooperation to hitherto unseen heights. And that's because ... terrorism is also spreading its ideology of hatred and intolerance around the world, and we have to match it in geographic location point by point.

A Washington Post writer suggests the book would be a perfect gift for the sleep-challenged, and as a shameless and unreformed Ambien user, I agree. I imagine keeping SS by my bedside at the ready for when the countless sheep keep sleep at bay, picking it up and turning a page or two and falling into a deep slumber in a matter of minutes—without having to worry about dangerous side effects like sleepwalking, sleep-driving, or horror of horrors, sleep-eating.

I can get my ZZZs in, minus the calories, and wake up refreshed and more enlightened about the security of our homeland. Fat brain without the fat ass. Sweet! Thanks Mike, you've done a heck of a job.