LAUER STEPS UP. How I mourn, and if I mourn, is nobody's business but mine. It's not the business of network news organizations, and it's certainly not the business of the ambitious young hacks of local news who send the latest Lisa or Brian to New York to stand over a mass grave while maudlin piano music tinkles away in the background. However, one little bit of video did catch my attention this morning. Matt Lauer of The Today Show got an interview in the Oval Office with George W. Bush. The first odd thing about it was that both men were standing. Usually, as was the case with Tim Russert's famous "Make-My-Dad-Proud" moment a while back, such conversations are held with both participants sitting down and practicing their best First Communion posture. In this case, Lauer and the president looked like a couple of local sportcasters in Green Bay, standing outside the stadium, chatting over the Packers game. To Lauer's enormous credit, and given the strange circumstances, he pushed as hard as was possible on the subject of the president's right to torture people. The way you knew he'd pushed hard was that the president began talking in smaller and smaller circles. He needs to be able to do this to keep people safe. He kept repeating that he needed these powers "within the law," and that "we don't torture." Lauer started to describe "water-boarding." The president refused to talk about "techniques that we use on people." He began to sputter, "Let me finish." Once again, he climbed on his little one-man railroad that traveled from "protecting the nation" to "we don't torture" to "within the law." You half-expected little springs to start bouncing out of his ears. "It's my job to protect YOU," he told Lauer at one point. What was more significant was the president's demeanor. He was loud. He was poking at Lauer's chest. He seemed convinced that his argument would be more compelling if he e-nun-ci-a-ted it like a man chewing steel and if, while doing so, he JUST MADE IT LOUDER. I swear, he looked like someone making a dubious point in a bar. Utterly, completely bizarre, at least to me. You can make your own judgement.
--Charles P. Pierce