Now and forever, it’s the “torture bill.” Soon we will find out whether "we" are for it or not

It is really a worthless exercise now to examine the actual content of the “torture bill.” That is what it is, and that is what it will be forever, and no amount of explaining and clarifying will ever undo that. As we have noted earlier, just the fact that the President of the United States supports torturing Muslim prisoners is incalculably damaging enough. But at least there is the fig-leaf consolation that many Americans do not agree with President Bush, and we can hope that the world continues to draw that distinction. How often do we see the concern with whether it’s the policies or the people of the United States that are hated?

But if Congress ratifies it, all Americans become guilty, like it or not – and the damage will be virtually un-repairable for a generation. So who cares what the world thinks? That might be a valid point, except it’s the rest of the world where the terrorists are coming from, and it’s the rest of the world that we will need to stop them.

Only an idiot cannot see that this one needs to torn up, and that, at a minimum, we need to start over with something that can no longer be called the “torture bill.”