The abominable weakness of the May 13 lead editorial, “No easy call on Haspel, as Collins-King split shows,” is a disgrace to the newspaper and to all of us. After a long trek down the “We-could-do-worse” road, you recommend Gina Haspel’s confirmation as CIA director and end with a squeaky little “We hope we’re right.”

Certianly we could have done worse than Gina Haspel. But we could have done a lot better if we had rejected her nomination and kept on rejecting unacceptable nominees no matter how many “the current occupant of the While House” proposes.

Haspel could not answer “no” to the question, “Was the torture immoral?” because she would have further endangered her chance of confirmation. She could not answer “yes” because the next question would have been, “Then why did you perform the immoral act?”

Why not take a position of strength and reject all justification of torture under any circumstances, ever?

Janet Carper

Cornish