Kilmeade: McCain ‘Should Not Be Allowed To Talk On Torture’ Because ‘He Was Tortured’

On CBS’ Face The Nation this past Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “resignation would be a decision” that Judge Jay Bybee, who authored one of the recently released torture memos, “would have to make on his own.” McCain added that Bybee had “fundamentally” misinterpreted “what the United States is all about, much less things like the Geneva Conventions.”

On the Brian And The Judge radio show yesterday, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade responded to McCain’s argument by saying that the former prisoner of war “should not be allowed to talk on torture because he is clearly somebody who went through unspeakable pain and punishment”:

KILMEADE: But he was tortured, he was tortured.

NAPOLITANO: And his views of torture are irrelevant?

KILMEADE: Are skewed.

NAPOLITANO: Because of what happened to him?

KILMEADE: Are skewed.

NAPOLITANO: I think his views are particularly telling.

KILMEADE: But what do you think, he’s going to be pro-torture after having been through it?

NAPOLITANO: No, of course he’s not going to be pro-torture.

Listen here:

McCain, who was tortured during the Vietnam war, responded last week to the revelation that the U.S. had waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times by saying, “One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period.” After saying McCain shouldn’t be able to talk about torture, Kilmeade added, “and plus, I don’t think this is torture.”

Transcript:

NAPOLITANO: You may not know the name, unless you live in California. Jay Bybee was a professional researcher for the Justice Department when he authored the principle of, the main one, of the torture memos. President Bush awarded him by appointing him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That’s the level of appellate court just below the Supreme Court. He was appointed to the Ninth Circuit, which covers the western third of the United States. There’s a lot of pressure on Jay Bybee, on Judge Bybee now because these memorandum, which obviously were not known about during the time of his confirmation came out. Here’s what John McCain had to say about it yesterday:

MCCAIN: Well, a resignation would be a decision he would have to make on his own, but he falls into the same category as everybody else as far as giving very bad advice and misinterpreting fundamentally what the United States is all about, much less things like the Geneva Conventions. Under President Reagan, we signed an agreement against torture. We were in violation of that.

KILMEADE: Oh come on. Number one, we all know John McCain’s not a lawyer, this guy is. Number two, judge, you knew at that time this was…

NAPOLITANO: This is your guy.

KILMEADE: No, he’s not my guy. I like John McCain, I respect him, but there’s a lot of issues I don’t understand. Plus, he should not be allowed to talk on torture because he is clearly somebody who went through unspeakable pain and punishment

NAPOLITANO: What do you mean he shouldn’t be allowed to talk? He has an opinion like everybody else. He represents the state of Arizona.

KILMEADE: But he was tortured, he was tortured.

NAPOLITANO: And his views of torture are irrelevant?

KILMEADE: Are skewed.

NAPOLITANO: Because of what happened to him?

KILMEADE: Are skewed.

NAPOLITANO: I think his views are particularly telling.

KILMEADE: But what do you think, he’s going to be pro-torture after having been through it?

NAPOLITANO: No, of course he’s not going to be pro-torture.

KILMEADE: And plus, I don’t think this is torture. And they don’t subscribe to the Geneva Conventions. We had this debate in 2002. You were on our set, you were on constantly saying, look, they don’t, the way the courts look at it right now, they do not fall under the Geneva Conventions and that was what they were going under.

NAPOLITANO: I never said that they didn’t fall under the Geneva Conventions.