What you won't hear at the Gonzales hearing

While Senate Democrats grill Alberto Gonzales and essentially accuse him of condoning the use of torture in the interrogation of unlawful combatants, you will probably not hear Democrats mention that one of the liberals' favorite law professors, Alan Dershowitz, advocated precisely that tactic in the wake of 9/11. Speaking about "ticking time-bomb" circumstances, Dershowitz stated in this interview that:

"[we could use] a torture warrant, which puts a heavy burden on the government to demonstrate by factual evidence the necessity to administer this horrible, horrible technique of torture. I would talk about nonlethal torture, say, a sterilized needle underneath the nail, which would violate the Geneva Accords, but you know, countries all over the world violate the Geneva Accords. They do it secretly and hypothetically, the way the French did it in Algeria. If we ever came close to doing it, and we don't know whether this is such a case, I think we would want to do it with accountability and openly and not adopt the way of the hypocrite."

In this op-ed piece, Dershowitz outlined his proposal:

"[N]o torture would be permitted without a 'torture warrant' being issued by a judge. An application for a torture warrant would have to be based on the absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it. The suspect would be given immunity from prosecution based on information elicited by the torture."

Dershowitz justified his argument by stating that it happens already, so steps should be taken to make it legal in certain circumstances. And Gonzales is the radical for asking the Justice Department to give a legal opinion on the status of the law regarding torture? Oooo-kaaaaay.