Always and forever.

What is it with you guys, Mr. Shapiro?

Stuck to his guns?

Is it possible that you really don't understand that McCain and Lindsey Graham rammed through the Military Comissions Act that gave this administration everything it wanted for its pro-torture agenda? McCain has now officially accepted the administration's definition of "We don't torture," which needs to be read as "if we do it, it ain't torture." As Richard Nixon famously said, "if the President does it, it can't be illegal."

I know why you don't want to be against all Republicans, I don't either, but someone like McCain needs to do better at earning our respect, let me be clear that I mean for his political positions. What he endured in Vietnam is beyond politics, and I would never seeks to denigrate his service to this country, both as soldier or legislator. But he's been two-faced on the "torture issue," and he does not deserve admiration for that.

"The torture primary" - nice formulation, especially considering you were posting in ten minutes.

If anyone is still reading this thread, I just wanted to explain something about the technical side of Salon. My original posting about the "Torture Primary" was written in about 10 minutes and posted in War Room just about when the debate ended. Michael Scherer, who did an admirable job with the wrap-up, took things from there. He had, for example, the debate transcript from which to work. The Romney comments, which were indeed inflammatory on second reading, were buried at the end of his answer, which did mostly discuss prevention.

When I point out that torture produces unreliable information, the most common counterargument I hear is something like, "If someone was going to detonate a nuclear weapon in a U.S. city, don't you think the government should do anything it can to prevent that from happening?" Right, so maybe they should hire psychics, too, because you just never know, right?

According to Michael Sherer's recap, it went something like this:

Hume wants to do a role-playing game. Three shopping centers near American cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attacker is apprehended and may have information about more attacks to come. The question goes to McCain. "How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantánamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?"

What I didn't see was any reference to the unlikelihood of anyone currently at Guantanamo knowing anything about a plan that would in all probability have been developed after their incarceration there.

Any one of the Ten Little Republicans could, and should, have taken that tack and pointed out the utter absurdity of the question in the first place.

You folks spend 10 million times more effort worrying about this than you do the 3 million Americans in prison today, I guess everyone gets a feel-good progressive cookie.

He actually endorsed making Guantanamo TWICE as big. I think that bears mention in this post.

If one is confused by the "thin" candidate offering placed by the GOP for their next run at the presidency, one would have to look no farther than the knuckle-head that has been running the joint for the past six-plus years. Now you can se just how shallow the gene pool is...

citizens in NYC for years with his my-way-or-the-highway mentality. Highlighted by the lie he laid onto the clean-up crews at ground zero with patriotic tales of fresh air and a "not-to-worry , but hurry-up" with the rubble mess attitude that has caused death and long term disability to those who worked so hard to remove it. What a guy. What a Patriot. I guess he fashions himself as a sort of mini George Bush, in drag.

What a swindler. As the front runner in a field of flip floppers, gun totters, and right wing loyalists lackeys, I guess one can fool all of the GOP all of the time. Bush proved it twice (well, once with a coup) and now it's Rudy time. Good luck America. P.T. Barnum could not have played these sucker better...

I can understand why torture doesn't work. The only reason to give information under torture is because you believe the torture will stop if you cooperate.

But honestly, why would you ever trust someone who was torturing you?

It seems kind of idiotic to ever trust a torturer with anything, ever, for any reason.

After all -- look at what that person is capable of doing!!!

Someone capable of doing THAT has to be so far debased as a human -- how could you trust that person to keep any kind of promise, ever, about anything?

Too bad he couldn't stick by his guns when it really mattered (i.e. the Military Commissions Act).