How Bush's push for torture will play to the public

Publius says this:

The most visible story – the “superstructure” – is that GOP Senators are bucking the White House on a fairly complicated military commissions bill. However, the current media narrative is very simple – the Republican Party is fighting about whether to legalize torture. And in relaying this narrative, virtually every mainstream media outlet in the country (excluding partisan columnists, magazines, etc.) is going to paint McCain & Company as the good guys.

I wish he were right about this, but I'm afraid he's wrong. Last night on Hardball, Tweetie Bird (Chris Matthews) debunked the argument against Bush's bill made by McCain and others. They argue that our ratification of torture could hurt American troops when they are captured because their captors would follow our lead and ignore Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. He tossed this argument off with a smirk and a rhetorical question saying something like, "Now, come off it. You don't really believe do you that a bunch of bearded radical terrorists, living in caves, are going to debate the meaning of the Geneva Convention when considering how to treat an American they've captured?"

At other points in the discussion, he acted as though he clearly favored using the most extreme forms of torture on "terrorists."

Unfortunately, the press (with the active support of the Prez) has so fully dehumanized "terrorists" of all stripes that many people want to see them tortured. They're not human, they're not even animals. They're filthy vermin that deserve anything they get.

I don't know how this is going to play out with the public at large, but I know for a fact that there are many, many people out there who would just love to join in the torturing of these guys.

That's bad enough, but with all the calls for a war against "Islamofascism," it's getting more and more difficult for these people to avoid conflating the inhuman "terrorists" with Muslims in general. In the eyes of many (perhaps including the Pope, given his comments the other day), they're all inhuman.