Saturday, January 12, 2008

Regrets, I Have a Few   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I mentioned waterboarding way too casually in a short election piece earlier this week. I used it as shorthand for the whole interrogation debate and both the issue and Senator McCain deserve more.

That Americans worry that we are human-rights champions and don't abuse even some of the worst men alive is a testament to us and our morality.

On torture, John McCain knows more, God bless him, than I will ever know. He has my deepest respect and gratitude for his service. But his leadership on the issue of torture and whether or not waterboarding is or isn't torture has done more harm than good. As others have explained in great detail, he's added confusion, Congress has punted, and the hands of men on the frontlines of wartime interrogation have been tied as a result.

John McCain has been stalwart on the surge in Iraq. We owe him for that — he was the D.C. leader articulating what the White House often didn't. But as important as it was and is, the surge isn't the sum-total of U.S. defense policy— a point that's been made in these parts. Neither is the surge policy the sum-total of John McCain. That was my point — when considering settling on a Republican nominee, conservatives need to consider the sum-total of a candidate. And when you look through John McCain's record — and policies he advocates/leads on to this day — there's plenty to disagree with, as Mark Levin and Andy McCarthy highlighted yesterday.

Folks will dissent with the mainstream of conservative thought — heaven knows we do it right here on a wide array of issues — among ourselves and in interacting with readers, other blogs, and columnists. I certainly wasn't writing folks who disagree on one rare form of interrogation out of the conservative movement (as if I have that power!). I was using shorthand — probably ill-advisedly — to refer to McCain's role in the legislative debate on interrogation.

01/12 02:10 PMShare