Condoleezza Rice: Torture was ok because Bush did it?

I've had some nice things to say about her in the past—which I've been regretting today—because boy has she gone off the deep end defending the legality of Bush's torture program.

I understand her need to be defensive, because she was complicit as National Security Advisor, but this doesn't wash.

Update: Actually, maybe I can parse her remarks as intended:

The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture...

The United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture, and so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

What she's doing here is merely defending her boss. Her defense may be insufficient or wrong, but she's not suggesting that Bush's orders were, by definition, lawful.

What she's saying is that Bush ordered everyone to act within the law, so his orders were, by definition lawful. If his subordinates exceeded it (e.g. by concocting bogus legal rationals) then this wasn't Bush's fault, but theirs for crossing a line he didn't want them to.

This line of thinking jives with Bush's public statements that "we don't torture". And "I asked, are these techniques legal? And so we got legal opinions..."

I don't think it's valid, because it seems to me Bush must have had knowledge that what he was doing wasn't kosher, but it was never a Nixonian "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."