Watch The Daily Show catch up with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, post-CIA torture report

(Image credit: Comedy Central)

last updated 8 January 2015

Whether the CIA, with legal backing from the Bush administration, tortured detainees or merely roughly interrogated them in an enhanced manner may seem like a question of semantics. But with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the cusp of releasing a blockbuster report detailing what it (and the dictionary, probably) calls torture by the CIA, Jon Stewart took a moment on Monday night's Daily Show to check in on how the three men in charge of the wars during the period in question — President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — are "dealing with their twisted legacy."

As luck would have it, all three men are back in the news. In a recent interview, Cheney took responsibility for enhanced interrogation but denied that it was torture. Rumsfeld, in a new documentary by Errol Morris, didn't deny anything, exactly, but he put all the blame on the attorney general, in the creepiest way possible (or maybe it's just the spooky music).

But what about Bush? Well, "the decider" has returned to public life mostly to showcase his paintings of world leaders. "He is a somewhat confounding dude," Stewart admitted. But other than not being impressed with Bush's commentary on his own art, Stewart didn't have a lot to say about Bush and torture. Maybe that's because Bush isn't talking about it? Regardless, you know it's a special Daily Show when Bush is the official treated with the most sympathy. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.