As you all might know, we here at Emptywheel are car people. And one annoying thread ran common as a persistent undercurrent through all of our auto and auto bailout coverage over the last year, and that was how pitiful and incompetent the American marques were, how much they deserved their fate and how awesome the Japanese brands, especially Toyota and Honda, were in comparison. This was incredibly disturbing because, as rudimentary as rolling iron seems on the surface, the automotive industry is incredibly complex and vertically integrated; it simply is not amenable to to simplisms and truisms that were bandied about in those tumultuous days.

Sadly, it is a meme that persists even today in spite of the fact that all manufacturers, very much including those in Japan, are sucking air and taking on water. And, no, their cars are not that much better either, they have quality and safety problems too.

For all of its ballyhooed efficiency, quality control and supposed relative superiority, the Japanese auto industry always was built on the shoulders and technology of the American manufacturers; they wanted the sales sector of the Americans and the aura of the Europeans. Since the Japanese marques first started their meteoric rise in prominence in the 70s, the holy grail for them was to compete and win on the highest stage in the world. Formula One. But the wake of the global financial meltdown has trashed their fortunes, and their goals, every bit as hard as it pounded the American car business. The pursuit of the holy grail is over, first for Honda last December, and now for Toyota:

Toyota announced Wednesday that it would give up its prized Formula One racing team in an effort to slash costs, refocus the company on green cars and turn a profit amid continued weakness in the auto sector.

Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, joins a growing exodus of Japanese auto companies from racing, highlighting the woes facing the country’s once cash-rich manufacturers. Honda pulled out of Formula One racing in December, while the tire-maker Bridgestone said this week that it would not renew its exclusive deal to supply tires to the series when its contract expires in 2010.

Subaru and Suzuki pulled out of the World Rally Championship before the season, citing concerns about the global crisis, while Kawasaki is quitting MotoGP, the top motorcycle competition.

“I hope you will understand that based on the current business environment we have no choice but to make this very painful decision,” Akio Toyoda, the Toyota president, said at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday. “To all fans, I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”

Akido Toyoda literally cried as he made the announcement. Make no mistake, there was cause; he, Toyota and Japan had all lost face with the withdrawal from Formula One. The Japanese do not take

The state secrets doctrine was born on the wings of fraud and lies by the US government in the case of US v. Reynolds in 1953. As Congress struggles to rein in the unbridled use of the doctrine to cover up illegality by the Executive Branch (see here, here and here), it is a good idea to keep focus on just how addicted the Executive Branch has become to this unitary ability to quash inquiry into their malfeasance.

It took over four decades for the outright lie in Reynolds to surface and be exposed. The government was well on their way to covering up their similar dishonesty in Horn v. Huddle for decades, if not eternity, when a relentless plaintiff was finally able to demonstrate to Judge Royce Lamberth the fraud being perpetrated upon the court, nearly a decade after the original state secrets assertion. After giving the government multiple opportunities to come clean, Judge Lamberth blistered the DOJ with an opinion literally finding their acts a fraud upon the court.

After being exposed on the record by Judge Lamberth, the government suddenly decided to settle with the plaintiff, with a non-disclosure and no admission of wrongdoing agreement of course, and then moved the court to vacate its rulings against them. The DOJ literally wants to erase the record of their fraud.

But not everybody is quite so excited about the thought of the DOJ wiping the record of their time worn proclivity to dishonesty in state secrets assertions. It important for there to be such a record, with written opinions of the court behind it, because the government is still out there seeking to shirk accountability for illegality and Constitutional malfeasance in critically important cases such as al-Haramain and Jeppesen.

In this regard, the attorney for al-Haramain, Jon Eisenberg, has just taken the extraordinary step of seeking leave to file an amicus brief to Judge Lamberth in the Horn v. Huddle case objecting to the government’s attempt to vacate the court’s opinions. The amicus filing by Eisenberg is brief, but a thing of beauty. And he nails the government for continuing dishonesty with the court by pointing out

I’m not so much surprised that Cheney, once again, used a public speaking opportunity to bitch and moan that Eric Holder is nodding briefly (but very ambivalently) toward the requirement to investigate the use of torture.

Cheney, speaking to the Economic Club of Southwest Michigan, was harshest when addressing a Department of Justice investigation into so-called “enhanced interrogations” used by the CIA and military on detained suspected terrorists.

“I find that absolutely abhorrent,” said Cheney, who served under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. “It bothers the heck out of me that we would go after those people who have been instrumental in preventing further attacks against the United States.”

The techniques, he said, were approved by Bush’s justice department and closely monitored by the CIA.

I’m surprised by the contrast. After all, last we saw Cheney, he was a babbling old fool who couldn’t seem to remember an attack on the CIA he had ordered up just a year earlier–or conversations he had had about those orders just seven months before. Yet here he was last night, talking about orders he gave to the CIA seven years ago, as if they were yesterday.

It’s remarkable, the way Cheney’s memory seems to be fresh all of a sudden.

But now that I think about it, Cheney still is–at heart–that same babbling old man, unable to remember basic facts about the events he has ordered, Consider these two details from his speech.

It did not amount to torture and broke no laws or international agreements, and the simulated drowning technique known as “waterboarding” was used only three times.

In all instances, he said, the methods used produced valuable information about terrorist operations.

Just to refresh old man PapaDick’s memory, waterboarding was used at least 268 times (83 times with Abu Zubaydah, at least 183 times with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and twice with Rahim al-Nashiri). With Abu Zubaydah, waterboarding produced no information that the FBI hadn’t already elicited using rapport-based interrogation. Not even Liz “BabyDick” Cheney claims waterboarding worked with al-Nashiri. And KSM provided a lot of information–much of it long after he was waterboarded, when the CIA had begun using rapport-based interrogation with him, too. I guess, too, old man PapaDick has simply forgotten how much inaccurate information these methods elicited.

So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised about Cheney’s apparently clear memory. Turns out he was the same doddering forgetful fool last night as he was on May 8, 2004, when he couldn’t seem to remember much of anything.

I guess I should be surprised, then, that MSNBC didn’t report this speech with a caveat, noting that Cheney’s memory has now proven to be completely faulty, and no one should treat his assertions about the CIA with any credibility.