ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
02.16.08 at 6:33 pm
in in the news
"Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain's decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment?
That's right, John McCain, the former POW who has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's disturbing embrace of extreme interrogation techniques.
But that was before his desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe that is running the Grand Old Party.
Earlier this week, I showed how outdated the image of McCain as an independent-thinking maverick had become -- and called on the media and independent voters to snap out of their 2000 reverie and see the 2008 McCain for what he has turned into: a Rove-embracing Bush clone, willing to jettison his principles in his hunger for the presidency.
And now comes this latest unconscionable capitulation, which should drive a stake through the heart of the McCain-as-straight-talker meme once and for all.
McCain the maverick had been unequivocal in his condemnation of torture, and eloquent in expressing why. "We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," he said at an Oval Office appearance in December 2005, after he had forced the president to endorse an earlier torture ban McCain had authored and pushed through (a ban the president quickly subverted with a signing statement). "What we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror."
He made a similar case on the campaign trail in Iowa in October 2007: "When I was imprisoned, I took heart from the fact that I knew my North Vietnamese captors would never be treated like I was treated by them. There are much better and more effective ways to get information. You torture someone long enough, he'll tell you whatever he thinks you want to know."
And there was this pithy and powerful summation of why torture should never be an option: "It's not about who they are, it's about who we are."
Of course, all that was before he put his conscience in leg irons -- and before caving to the would-be Torquemadas on the Right became his campaign strategy."
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