This is a rough transcript of some of Barbara Comstock on Chris Matthews last night on the Gonzales hearing. Her favorite part has got to be when he says, “you’re right on everything. i mean it.” Think you’ll enjoy:
COMSTOCK: the geneva conventions require things beyond humane treatment like monthly pay and uniform to interact with the other al qaeda and get and say don’t tell them about los angeles or the bomb plot in chicago.
MATTHEWS: why did the candidate say today the geneva conventions do apply to the fighting in iraq?
COMSTOCK: because they do. they always have.
MATTHEWS: the people fighting in iraq are not terrorists?
COMSTOCK: when we went into iraq, we were met with soldiers.
MATTHEWS: the people over there now, are are they terrorists?
COMSTOCK: we’ve gone under geneva conventions. you have a situation where people aren’t wearing uniform. they’re going and the, that is a problem. because iraq is a signer of the geneva conventions.
MATTHEWS: may be you can help here. we watched the fighting in fallujah. we watched our gi’s getting kill. we see the other side getting slaughtered. we captured their people are they covered by the geneva convention?
COMSTOCK: we are complying with geneva soldiers, for the iraqi soldiers. i don’t know if there is a different situation.
MATTHEWS: let’s find out. we’re not fighting guys in uniform. we’re fighting militia.
COCCO: could i raise this historical point? because barbara has referred to history a couple of times. during vietnam war, this issue of whether we should treat the viet cong who were an indigenous gorilla, insurgent group integrating themselves in villages, wearing civilian clothes and hiding in rice paddies. the united states decided then as a matter of principle, not as a legal requirement but as a matter of principle, we would apply the prescribes to captured viet cong. why? because our soldiers were at risk of being capture. and one of the main reason we have the geneva conventions is so that when our military personnel and civilian personnel are captured by the enemy, we want them treated humanely. and we want them treated in acore with the geneva congress geneva convention. we said we’ll do the right thing.
COMSTOCK: and we do it in iraq even though they behead us.
MATTHEWS: you’re right on everything. i mean it. i’m trying to get the facts on one thing. alberto gonzales said he is against torture today unoads. the senate judiciary hearing. we also have a memorandum that he had a role in. we’re be sure what the role is in term of the august memo 2002 where he clearly delineates what is in and what is acceptable. like cruelty, humiliation. that sort of thick. do you consider those categories, do you call that torture? are those things your idea of torture?
COMSTOCK: that memo is not in effect anymore. the memo that’s in effect is the december memo where they’ve taken out some of the language because people have misconstrued that as being a policy when all that was was looking at what the senate had defined as the haw. that was a legal interpretation of what the senate said.
MATTHEWS: so alberto gonzales was a hard liner in terms of trying to get information out of prisons. the phrase used often was forward leaning. that’s obviously a rumsfeld phrase. in this case, getting information out of them. is that your understanding?
COMSTOCK: everybody in the administration after 9/11, when you captured someone like….you want to get the maximum information out. that was the policy of the american people.
COCCO: why were so many f.b.i. agents so shocked, apalled — appalled, blanching at the conduct at guantanamo bay that there is now a flood of memos by f.b.i. agents. i have met a lot of f.b.i. agents and none of them are pansies. they don’t blanch at blood. they blanched at what was going on at guantanamo bay.
COMSTOCK: now you’re mixing apples and oranges.
MATTHEWS: your position is that this administration is not formally or informally turned its side or ignored cases of torture.
COMSTOCK: no we’re investigating them now. the geneva conventions do not apply in gitmo.
MATTHEWS: i didn’t know it was part of our interrogation process. i had no idea that we’re not allowed to torture people to get information out of them.
COMSTOCK: that’s the legal guy up in harvard, that’s his policy that we should do that. but that’s never been the policy.
MATTHEWS: i feel much better. thank you. i’m serious. i hope it’s true. thank you. i really mean it.