Talking Points

Do you want to have Americans seen as torturers, or not?

Do you want to face the prospect of American Soldiers being tortured and our government not having the moral highground to be outraged?

If George Bush gets what he wants, if he keeps his majority in Congress, then America becomes no longer the leader of the "free world", but the country that kills the Geneva Conventions.

All for the purpose of "getting their sadism" on.

On one side are the Republican veterans of the uniformed services, arguing that the president’s proposal would effectively gut the nearly 60-year-old Geneva Conventions, sending a dark signal to the rest of the world and leaving United States military without adequate protection against torture and mistreatment.

On the other are the Bush administration and Republican leaders of both the House and Senate who say new tools are urgently needed to pursue and interrogate terror suspects and to protect the covert operatives who play an increasingly important role in chasing them.

Republicans concede that the fight among themselves is a major political distraction, particularly given the credentials of the Republican opposition, led by Mr. McCain, the former prisoner of war in Vietnam who was tortured in captivity.

“It is a big problem,” said Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois, a senior House Republican. “These guys have a lot of weight and a lot of standing. McCain is a tough guy to beat on this.”

But Mr. Bush, who visited the Capitol on Thursday to rally House Republicans behind his approach, is also tough. He will no doubt do everything possible to get a deal, if not on the floor of the Senate then in conference between the House and the Senate. But the immediate result in political terms has been to create a battle among Republicans about core principles less than eight weeks before Election Day.

“This whole issue is going to send a signal about who America is in 2006,” Mr. Graham said.

Indeed it is Mr. Graham.

And notice the even-handedness of the piece, "Bush is also tough" -- so tough he thinks he's Jack fuckin' Bauer.