The DailyKos blog has a story about the latest White House attempts to have their cake and eat it, too.

There are two things going on:

1) A court ordered the latest most horrific Abu Ghraib photos and videos to be released by yesterday (July 22nd), but on that day the government filed an 11th hour motion requesting exemption in order to continue to suppress knowledge of inhumane treatment of prisoners. They really don’t want this story out there; by filing the motion late on a Friday, it will likely be missed by most of the press.

2) When lawmakers, including John McCain (R-Az.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) begin work on amendments to defense spending bills “on the standard treatment of prisoners,” the Bush administration resorts to threats: “If legislation is presented that would restrict the president’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,” the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.

Apparently it’s not enough to torture and degrade America’s image in the eyes of the world; anyone who wants to legislate on the matter, for example, a former POW Republican senator, which may have the affect of improving America’s image by reaffirming values such as fair treatment and opposition to cruel and inhumane punishment, is told to back off.