Torture politics makes for strange bedfellows. For those of you who think the Obama Administration doesn\u2019t know how to work with Republicans, think again. North Carolina\u2019s Republican Senator, Richard Burr, may soon be one of the Obama Administration\u2019s best friends.<\/p>\n
Burr, now a member of the Chairman of the Senate\u2019s Select Committee on Intelligence, is the presumptive Chairman of the Committee, if as predicted the Republicans take control of the Senate.<\/p>\n
Why will they be friends? It\u2019s simple. The Administration\u2019s stall ball, its protracted review of the Committee\u2019s long-anticipated report on the nation\u2019s torture program, has taken us to late October. Just in time to see the Senate flip to a Republican majority that will almost certainly spike release of the report, say Senate staffers. After all Burr, the Chairman in waiting, is the guy who jested<\/a> with a witness during a hearing: “I see you’re on your fourth glass of water and I don’t want to be accused of waterboarding you.”<\/p>\n The clock is ticking down on the Committee\u2019s effort to release a public accounting of our nation\u2019s failed and repugnant torture program.<\/p>\n Six months have passed since the Intelligence Committee voted to release its 480-page executive summary of its review of our nation\u2019s \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d program. By all accounts the report is shocking. It \u201cexposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to happen,\u201d the Committee\u2019s leader, California\u2019s Dianne Feinstein, said in April.<\/p>\n