GOP Leader John Boehner Does Cheney's Bidding

Dick Cheney believes there are Bush-era torture documents pointing to the effectiveness of abusing detainees in U.S. custody, and wants the White House to release them. The House Minority Leader has Cheney's back.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, used the White House meeting to push for the release of more memorandums documenting the use of the harsh techniques, suggesting they could show that the interrogation methods were effective, as former Vice President Dick Cheney has claimed.

The president did not foreclose the release of more documents, officials briefed on the session said. But Mr. Obama suggested to Mr. Boehner that the additional information would not be definitive on the value of the information obtained from the detainees, they said.

It's a little odd for Boehner to suddenly see the value in releasing more classified torture materials. He and his allies have, after all, spent the last week insisting that the mere discussion undermines U.S. national security interests.

But that's what makes yesterday's request interesting. As Greg Sargent explained, "John Boehner and the House GOP leadership have adopted a new position on torture: The only classified info Obama should release about the torture program is that which could prove Dick Cheney's claim that torture worked to be true. This is not an exaggeration. It really is their position."