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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months before the first primary and after only two poorly run debates and before the full field has either committed or withdrawn.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

Personally, I think it's moronic to commit 6-8 months before the first primary

Well, putting that personal attack aside (but see tagline), I have to say that I don't think Mitt has commited a faux pas at all. Nobody is condoing torture. Period.

The great military leaders you listed previously, lived in a pre-9/11 world.

If it comes down to stopping a terrorist attack on a major US city by using some of these techniques, I think I'd have to side with Bush and Romney on this. There is no eye-gouging, acid being poured or limbs breaking etc. No Jack Bauer stuff.

The most severe of the techniques is rarely used and is reserved only for a “very small percentage of the most uncooperative detainees” believed to possess critical intelligence.

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Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" asked Hennen.

"It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president `for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in," Cheney replied. "We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that."

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To read the techniques requested is to understand how restrained the military has been in its approach to terror detainees—and how utterly false the torture narrative has been. A detainee could be poked only after review by Gitmo’s commanding general of intelligence and the commander of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, and only pursuant to “careful coordination” and monitoring.

It is the necessity of this fallen world that we must oppose evil with force; and we must use all the lawful means necessary to ensure that good, rather than evil, triumphs.

How To Interrogate Terrorists