Lawrence O'Donnell
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LAWRENCE O'DONNELL (Fmr. Senate Democratic chief of staff): Well, you know, the interesting thing about Liz and her dad's position is that a releasing of a memo has made the country less safe and so the Cheney family suggestion is now to release more of it. So, you know, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that if we release classified information it makes us less safe and now let's release more of it. That's their position and the funny thing is that Dick Cheney's argument and Liz's argument with the Obama administration is really an argument that began in the Bush administration when Dick Cheney started to lose the fights in house. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed in practices under the Obama administration.

O'DONNELL: It is torture. This government has prosecuted people in the past for doing exactly this. But Dick Cheney believes that it's not torture and that is essential to his position. He can never acknowledge what waterboarding actually was, as practiced by the Bush administration, because it was torture. Every definition of torture is included in that. And, you know, what's really silly about it is the Cheney notion it was a very effective program, that waterboarding in these kind of torture methods were effective. If it was effective, why did they use it on only three people? If it was effective, why didn't they use it on the 500 people, 500 people that Bush/Cheney administration released from Guantanamo? 75 of whom we know, we know, we now know have gone back into the terrorism business. That was a failure of the Bush/Cheney administration to keep America safe by processing people correctly at Guantanamo. It let go a minimum of 75 people who have gone back into the terrorism.

Liz Cheney Vs. O'Donnell: ABC's Chris Cuomo Moderates Fiery Debate on Torture
By Scott Whitlock (Bio | Archive) May 22, 2009 - 12:07 ET
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2009/05/22/liz-cheney-vs-odonnell-abcs-chris-cuomo-moderates-fiery-debate-tortu

Kaplan likewise gave free reign to Democratic partisan and former congressional operative Lawrence O'Donnell, who retained his title as "MSNBC Political Analyst" even after co-hosting an October 2004 interview in which he called an interviewee one or another variant of "liar" 39 times. O'Donnell's victim was John O'Neill, co-author of the book Unfit for Command about Democratic presidential nominee, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry.

The Strange Odyssey of MSNBC's Rick Kaplan
Lowell Ponte Thursday, June 15, 2006
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/6/14/214646.shtml

"Sleazy" Cheney’s Speech: "An Absolute Abomination" "

Well, he [Dick Cheney] came today to — obviously to do nothing much other than defend torture, which he calls ‘tough questioning.’ This was as sleazy a presentation by a Vice President as we’ve had since Spiro Agnew. This was an absolute abomination....This guy just has to lie from beginning to end through his setup of his opposition’s position in order to advance any of his ideas at all, none of which have any proof to them at all....This is the kind of sleazy arguing that this guy does in these speeches. It is just ridiculous. It is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who’s listening to him."

— MSNBC political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell during live coverage following Cheney’s speech on terrorism, May 21.

http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/nq/2009/20090529044940.aspx