Waterboarding Weasels - Results Of This Weeks Voting

Each week, the Watcher's Council holds a contest for best post. The Council members submit a post they have written and one post by someone outside the Council for consideration. The Watcher tallies the votes and announces the winners each Friday. This week, the overriding theme of the submitted posts dealt with waterboarding. Not surprisingly, the winning posts in both council and non-council categories dealt with this issue.

In the council category, coming in first place was my post Words Have Meaning Rick addressing whether the OLC attorneys presented a reasonable legal argument on waterboarding in the memos released by Obama near a week ago. The second place post Soccer Dad's very cogent criticism of the sophomoric musings of Tom Friedman and company in It’s easy being green. Not. Coming in third place were Right Truth's The next 1,360 days, The Razor's Why An Alcoholic Supports the Legalization of Illicit Drugs, and The Colossus of Rhodey's Did the NY Times bury an “inconvenient” torture memo story? And a torture question …

In the non-council category, coming in first place was a superb post from Legal Insurrection - Which city would you sacrifice? - setting out the stakes involved in the controversy surrounding waterboarding. Coming in a close second was my nomination, Michael Scheurer's essay Say Its Osama. What If He Won’t Talk? in the Washington Post excorciating Obama for his decision to end enhanced interrogation. As a side note, also making the list of vote getters was Rick Moran's post, The Moral Parameters of Torture . I have taken extreme issue with that post - and indeed, it has spawned three posts of my own since: Moral Confusion At Rightwing Nuthouse , The Moral, Legal & Prudential Considerations Surrounding Waterboarding, and, with special thanks to Soccer Dad, The Ticking Time Bomb & Coercive Interrogation.

At any rate, do visit the Watcher's site for the full results of the voting and to read his own musings on the topic of waterboarding.