My Tortured Decision  —  FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding.  I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified.

Cheney Succeeding In Shifting Torture Debate?  —  In case you're wondering whether Dick Cheney and other former Bushies are succeeding in shifting the torture debate on to the narrow question of whether torture has “worked,” take a look at this headline, photo, and article in today's New York Times (click to enlarge):

Larry Summers falls asleep during Obama's meeting with credit card executives.  —  Today, President Obama met with credit card industry officials at the White House.  After the meeting, he pledged to push for a law that would offer “strong and reliable” protections for credit card users in the United States.

RNC faction wants Dems branded socialists  —  A conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is urging the GOP to take a harder line against both Democrats and wayward Republicans, drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the “Democrat Socialist Party” …

GOP Stymies Vote on Sebelius  —  President Obama will have to wait a bit longer to round out his Cabinet.  Senate Republicans refused today to allow a confirmation vote on his health secretary nominee Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.).  She is the last Cabinet member awaiting Senate approval.

Taliban advance eastward, threaten Islamabad  —  Click map for full view.  Taliban presence, by district and tribal agency, in the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies.  Information on Taliban presence obtained from open source and derived …

WaPo hires Prospect's Klein  —  The American Prospect's Ezra Klein, one of the top bloggers on politics and policy, is heading to the Washington Post.  —  Rumors about Klein's upcoming move spread on Wednesday night during a reception thrown by The Nation magazine in honor of D.C. bureau chief Chris Hayes.

Johnston 'didn't think it was going to get this rough'  —  (CNN) — A year ago, few outside of Wasilla, Alaska, had ever heard of Levi Johnston.  All that changed last summer when Gov. Sarah Palin accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination.  —  Soon after she entered the national spotlight …

King: Torture trial should spark “scorched earth”  —  New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.  —  King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should …

Meghan McCain to Rove & Cheney: ‘Go Away’  —  ABC News' Rick Klein reports: Meghan McCain guest-hosted ABC's “The View” Thursday and brought some blunt advice for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney: “Go away.”  —  “It's very unprecedented for someone like Karl Rove or Dick Cheney to be criticizing the president,” McCain said.

Torturing the Truth  —  It's time to face the ugly reality about the use of harsh interrogation tactics  —  When the Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote his epic, The Gulag Archipelago, some Americans read it to measure the gulf between the brute savagery of communism and the principled standards of free, civilized nations.

U.S. Is Said to Prepare Filing for Chrysler Bankruptcy  —  By MICHELINE MAYNARD and MICHAEL J. de la MERCED  —  DETROIT — The Treasury Department is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for Chrysler that could come as soon as next week, people with direct knowledge of the action said Thursday.

American Heroes  —  That's what we ought to call the men and women who interrogated the worst of the worst.  For those most committed to the ridiculous crusade for terrorist rights, “enhanced interrogation” is not only immoral and illegal, it's ineffective.  That argument, like Khalid Sheik Mohamed, doesn't hold water.

Yemen Dispute Slows Closing of Guantánamo  —  The Obama administration's effort to return the largest group of Guantánamo detainees to Yemen, their home country, has stalled, creating a major new hurdle for the president's plan to close the prison camp in Cuba by next January, American and Yemeni officials say.

Obama at 100 Days: Strong Job Approval, Even Higher Personal Ratings  —  Better Ratings for Foreign Policy than Domestic Issues  —  As he approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency, Barack Obama's job approval ratings are higher than those of his most recent predecessors.

Bill O'Reilly's response to waterboarding: ‘Torture, my ass.’  —  Last night on The Factor, Bill O'Reilly hosted Newsday columnist Ellis Henican, who criticized O'Reilly's tolerance of torture.  “You disappoint me, you disappoint me,” Henican said, pointing his finger at O'Reilly.

News Bulletin  —  A Corner exclusive: How many times have you read and heard in the mainstream media that terrorists were waterboarded more than 180 times?  It turns out that's not true.  What is?  According to two sources, both of them very well-informed and reliable (but preferring to remain anonymous) …

Hannity Offers To Be Waterboarded For Charity (By Charles Grodin!)  —  Oh, well.  This is, I believe, a “golden moment” in the history of televised media.  Sean Hannity had actor Charles Grodin on his show tonight, and the two men actually had some genuinely good natured sparring with each other over the news of the week.

Political History 101: O'Reilly falsely claimed Nixon never met with Mao … On the April 22 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that President Richard Nixon never met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong.  —  While discussing President Obama's handshake …

Lots of unpatriotic Texans want out of the union  —  With numbers like these, it's obvious why Texas Gov. Rick Perry is talking secession in the runup to what will be a tough primary battle against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson:  —  Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 4/20-22.  Likely voters.

Sizing Up Obama's First 100 Days  —  The President almost seemed apologetic.  “This may be a slightly longer speech than I usually give,” he told his audience at Georgetown University on April 14.  “This is going to be prose and not poetry.”  What followed, as promised, was not poetry.

CHU WASN'T THE ‘BAFFLED’ ONE.... Arrogance is almost always unseemly, but I think there's an important distinction to be made between conceit and misplaced arrogance.  The prior is merely unseemly; the latter is humiliating.  —  Yesterday, at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee …