Made Damn Sure That St. McCain Washed His Hands and Sealed Their Fate
By A bit earlier this evening, in the comments section at TPMCafe, I said that from what I could tell the torture compromise is that we agreed not to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, only to continue violating them. The Post now has its editorial out. And they appear to have to come to something like the same conclusion. (Can’t wait to hear the Dean’s verdict.) The senate won’t formally reinterpret the Geneva Convention or explicitly sanction the president’s torture policies. But they’ll allow him to keep using them.
That’s the compromise.
The Senate, in this dance, becomes the United States ‘rendering’ prisoners to the executive for illicit torture much as the US renders folks to Syria and Egypt when we really want them to get the treatment.
Right. The compromise is apparently to not explicitly sanction torture, but to carefully ensure that there’s no way to stop the president from doing it with the full knowledge that he’ll keep doing it. Which is about the most cowardly and lawless way out possible. This kabuki legitimizes the actions of President-Brags-About-Torture more than just ignoring it. (But, as one of our commenters notes, torture works when third-rate actors perform it on the TeeVee, so what’s the problem?)