Another chance for senators — including McCain — to take a stand against torture [Updated]

February 13, 2008

Between the presidential campaign and yesterday’s votes on telecom immunity and surveillance powers, it’s hard for other issues to gain traction, but there’s an interesting measure poised for a Senate vote today that’s worth considering.

A spending bill to finance the nation’s intelligence efforts went to conference after the House and Senate versions were slightly different, and while there, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) added an important provision — mandating one interrogation standard for the entire U.S. government. The Feinstein measure requires the intelligence community to abide by the same interrogation standards articulated in the Army Field Manual, which, of course, prohibit torture.

Under Senate rules in place for this debate, Dems will need 60 votes to pass the bill, and a handful of Republicans, including Hagel and Snowe, have said they’ll vote with the majority, despite the White House’s opposition to applying Army Field Manual standards to the intelligence community.

So, what’s John McCain going to do? Here’s what he said a couple of months ago:

Or, in text form: “I would hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and Jack Bauer. Life is interrogation techniques which are humane and yet effective. And I just came back from visiting a prison in Iraq. The army general there said that techniques under the Army Field Manual are working and working effectively, and he didn’t think they need to do anything else. My friends, this is what America is all about.”

If this is what “America is all about,” will McCain break party ranks and vote for his values?

If McCain votes in support of the Army Field Manual standards, he runs the risk of angering the pro-torture Republican base.

If McCain votes against the Army Field Manual standards, he’ll have flip-flopped, cravenly, on what he claims to be a personal principle.

If McCain fails to show up for work (again) because voting one way or the other is filled with political peril, he’ll look spineless (again), just as he did last week on the stimulus bill.

Here’s Harry Reid on the subject yesterday:

“When the Intelligence Authorization conference report comes to the floor tomorrow, Republicans should join us to support one standard of interrogation – as outlined in the Army Field Manual – for the entire government.

“We want to abide by the manual because it works. Gen. Petraeus has said it works effectively. Thirty-six retired Admirals and Generals have said it is effective on high-level detainees. And a bipartisan group of foreign policy experts – including the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission and Republicans who served as National Security Adviser, Secretary of State and Secretary of the Navy – have asked Congress to endorse the same standards in the Army Field Manual.

“Agreeing on one standard of interrogation will help restore our moral leadership in the world, and it is incredible that some Republicans may vote against that. In the long run, torture does not help the United States; in fact, it can be counterproductive as the information obtained is not reliable, it puts our own troops at greater risk and it undermines our counterinsurgency efforts.”

ThinkProgress, Kagro, and Aravosis are also all over this.

We’ll see what happens.

Update: It looks like McCain’s GOP colleagues decided to make this a lot easier on him:

This is what the administration’s recent pro-waterboarding PR offensive had been leading up to. But the Republican side backed down.

Later this afternoon, the Senate will be voting on a bill authorizing the government’s intelligence activities. Included in that bill is a measure sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would restrict the interrogation methods the CIA could use to the Army Field Manual, which bans waterboarding and other harsh techniques currently used by the CIA. The Republicans had been expected to challenge that provision, forcing a vote. But they didn’t. After a vote on the bill in 90 minutes or so, it will be on its way to the President, who has already announced that he will veto it.

No way he shows up to vote on this. He’s busy courting the crazies and this won’t help with them.

  • Can Reid publically ask Sen. McCain when he will be in town to vote on this amendment then schedule it for then?

  • He’s at the Hyatt on H Street today for some “finance” event. He’s what—8 blocks away from his place of employment? He doesn’t have an excuse this time; not showing up for work constitutes “job abandonment.”

    And America does not need another “absentee landlord” for a President—8 years of it have been more than enough, thank you. MUCH more than enough. If he doesn’t show up, the right-wing blogs ought to tear into him like a pack of ravenous hyenas.

    Unless, of course, all those right-wing blogs are just as spineless as McCain.

    So—how about it, all you “RedStaters” out there in tubes-land? Consider this your “triple-dog-dare” of the moment….

  • Chickenhawk Supreme Bill KKKristol, quoted on Jon Stewart last night, ” I am ambivalent toward torture”…… saying that if McCain thought we should not torture, well, that might be OK.
    In a nutshell, it shows the lack of morality, and decency, of the Right.

    I have a way to end his ambivalence, can anyone guess how?

  • Yesterday I heard “Justice” Antonin Scalia commenting on interrogation techniques. Of course he’s pro-torture. His argument is that interrogation isn’t “punishment,” and that the Eighth Amendment only prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The rest of his discussion basically made the point that the ends justify the means, which is exactly the opposite of what his Catholic Church teaches in moral theology.

    McCain will probably duck this vote, too. He has no excuse for ducking it, just as he had no excuse for ducking the vote on the stimulus bill last week.

    How “presidential” is that?

  • Under Senate rules in place for this debate, Dems will need 60 votes to pass the bill

    When will this madness end?
    Harry Reid continues to fail the party and the country. Thanks for nothing, “Majority Leader.”

  • Feinstein doing the right thing? I’d given up hope about her and the rest of the Democratic Senatorial “Cavemen” who always caved to the Republicans when the right wanted to torch our Constitution. Good for her … but she’s still way deep in the dog house.

  • Are we seriously having a discussion about how, or if, a former POW is going to vote on a torture bill ?? Talk about selling out… whatever it takes John, whatever it takes.

  • I agree with others — no way McCain shows up to vote on this thing. It’d be too costly to piss off the nuts who think torture is dandy.

    Although, how in the hell someone who was tortured could skip a vote barring torture is beyond me …

  • ThinkProgress, Kagro, and Aravosis are also all over this.
    And once again the rest of the country won’t notice.

  • If Feinsteins name is on it and /or Reid is pushing it then it is fucked or soon will be. Neither has any credibility after the FISA capitulation. They are desperately trying to “look” good. They just disgust me and they no longer represent the people.

  • But, if he doesn’t show up, it will be a good attack point. If you don’t feel strongly about your own values enough to vote and protect them, who or what else will you be willing to throw to the wolves?

  • Since waterboarding is only illegal when it is applied as punishment then they will not mind if I go out and waterboard my brother! Nothing illegal about that!

  • You people are all hypocrites! You claim that it is wrong to torture people, but then you snicker with glee when the Senate votes on issues that are politically inconvenient for John McCain. Harry Reid is making an old man pee his pants with fear, forcing a war hero to cower behind the bed in his hotel room rather than show up to do his taxpayer-funded job, and all you can do is laugh.

    Shame on you! Leave that poor, poor man alone! You’ve seen the pictures of Bush hugging and kissing McCain. Hasn’t the man suffered enough? Must you wrench from him the one tiny sliver of dignity that he hasn’t already tossed away?

  • I’ll be more surprised if the Donkeys don’t capitulate than if McGrandpa votes to sustain. But I’ll be thrilled if I’m wrong. It’s a start. Maybe they will reach the impeachment threshold within the next gazillion years.

  • If this is what “America is all about,” will McCain break party ranks and vote for his values?

    McCain has no values. He is a sycophant war pig who just happens to be pliably suppine enough to be POTUS.

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