And on the Far Right:

Nicholas Kristof describes John McCain as "The World's Worst Panderer" in today's New York Times, describing a series of incidents in which the senator notoriously contradicted himself, like the Confederate Flag issue (“symbol of racism"/“symbol of heritage”).

Back on February 17, 2000, when McCain was running in another presidential primary, George W. Bush had this to say about him: "The senator has got to understand if he's going to have—he can't have it both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road."

Now that's killing two birds with one—mistake.


Dan Eggen reports in today's Washington Post on how the Bush administration "allowed CIA interrogators to use tactics that were 'quite distressing, uncomfortable, even frightening,' as long as they did not cause enough severe and lasting pain to constitute illegal torture."

The CIA's position seems to be that updated waterboarding isn't torture because the tactic has been refined since the Spanish Inquisition used it.

If this is permissible for the CIA to do when interrogating terrorist suspects, is it also permissible for your local police department when questioning criminal suspects? Why not? After all, if you aren't guilty of anything, what do you have to worry about, right? And, uh, the same thing can be said of your children, right? How about your mother?