This just in from the Department of Redundancy Department: Apparently, Congress is to blame for the whole waterboarding brouhaha. (Only the Democratic Congress, of course - I mean, come on, we all know that blame depends entirely upon which party you belong to.) See, the federal government is confused about how to handle waterboarding because Congress hasn't specifically said that we can't do it - so say Michael Reagan and Pat Buchanan, who apparently haven't heard of that whole "cruel and unusual" thing.

Why is that redundant? Because Congress already tried to do that, only to be blown off by the White House. After the passing of a bill intended to ensure that detainees would at least receive the same treatment as, say, convicted murderers, President Bush whipped out one of his All-Powerful Signing Statements in order to declare that he could ignore any restrictions on torture when doing so would "assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Lovely. Honestly, why bother even having a legislative branch anymore? I'm sure the Founding Fathers would agree that checks and balances were, like, so two centuries ago. Let's just text in votes for an all-powerful Decider in 2008, and tell Congress to come back when it can get answers out of terrorists in five screams or less.