Replies

Great military leaders like Grant or Lee or Eisenhower or MacArthur, none of them ever endorsed the use of torture.

While I usually enjoy your writing, this time we will have to agree to disagree over what the definition of torture is or is not. I don't think Romney was condoing the use of torture --- and we shouldn't. "Enhanced interrogation techniques" are not torture in my book....or Bush's or Cheney's or Romney's. I guess the only technique used which is on the borderline is waterboarding. I've seen that demonstrated and it leaves no physical marks or disabilities. I also think it is rarely used and saved for the most critical of cases.

Anti-”torture” absolutists like Sullivan adamantly deny that harsh tactics produce reliable information. It’s their way of avoiding the moral dilemma presented by a ticking time-bomb scenario. But they’ll have to face it now, because in four short minutes Brian Ross utterly explodes that particular article of quasi-religious faith as fantasy. Not only did they break Khaled Sheikh Mohammed; not only was the information he gave them valuable; not only did it save lives; but Ross’s sources include people within the CIA who are opposed to the practices.
Bombshell: ABC independently confirms success of CIA “torture” tactics

Does your candidate, Fred Thompson, side with McCain and Lyndsey Graham on this issue as well? ;o)

I guess the only technique used which is on the borderline is waterboarding. I've seen that demonstrated and it leaves no physical marks or disabilities. I also think it is rarely used and saved for the most critical of cases.

Police can beat a suspect without leaving marks. Abusive parents can beat their children in ways that don't leave marks.

That hardly makes it acceptable.

Does your candidate, Fred Thompson, side with McCain and Lyndsey Graham on this issue as well? ;o)

Thompson is not my candidate. While I hover in the Ron Paul camp currently simply because I am a longtime Friend Of Ron, I lean toward either Romney or Fred Thompson in the top tier.

Sad that McCain spoke that truth and got no credit and no one joined him in the only acceptable position on the matter. I'm not a neo-con torture-sponsoring conservative.

You really should know that the GOP field was having a bad night when McCain could improve his position with me.

The FNC debate, now that I've repeatedly reviewed portions of it, was actually as bad as the first one on PMSNBC in many respects. It made the GOP candidates even less attractive to me, designed as it was to make Giuliani look good. FNC is so clearly in the tank for the leftwing mayor. The only real improvement in this second debate was that they encouraged direct confrontation between candidates like an actual debate would have.

A person can say nice things about a candidate (Romney or Thompson or Paul or even McCain) or criticize a candidate without having either picked a candidate to back or picked any ones to reject. So far, I have only rejected Giuliani. Personally, I think it's moronic to commit 6-8 months before the first primary and after only two poorly run debates and before the full field has either committed or withdrawn.

Perhaps Romney will recover from this faux pas. It certainlyl isn't fatal but I do expect more than this. I give fewer passes to the best educated and most knowledgable candidates. Romney knew better. The temptation to pander for applause lines to avoid looking weak is great, the limited time to decide which tack to take on the question, the need to stand out from the field, tailoring responses to try to warm a particular crowd (of rubes), well, that is all somewhat political. But this is exactly the kind of character issue that defines a president.

For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? - Luke 23:31 KJV