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And I do accept the point that that she is backsliding on the AFM principle, but not as clear she is backsliding on the more fundamental point on a torture ban.
This is exactly the conversation (at least part of it) I just had with Wyden's office. Everyone agrees on a "torture ban." The problem is: what does that mean?
Democrats always had a clear answer: allow nothing except what's in the AFM. Everyone could look at those techniques and they were clear and allowed for no manipulation. That was their clear, emphatic statement.
By now saying they no longer want to be confined to that, they're completely abandoning what they said all year. The fact that they continue to say they favor a "torture ban" is, to me, no more comforting than when George Bush says that. Why can't they just do what they said all year they were going to do?
I'm not directing this at you -- I know you're basically making this point -- but I couldn't believe how Wyden's spokesperson called me all angry and aggressive about how I had misunderstood and distorted his point, and then when I kept asking what his view was, she kept describing it EXACTLY how I characterized it.
