This week, Rudy Giuliani played the crazy-person card in response to a question at an event in Iowa about torture. Asked if he thought waterboarding constituted torture, Giuliani said, “It depends on how it’s done,” adding that he was skeptical about the practice based on descriptions from the “liberal media.” Giuliani went on to say, “It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.”
John McCain followed up on Giuliani’s comments with some incredulity yesterday.
“Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak,” said McCain after a campaign stop at Dordt College here.
“People who have worn the uniform and had the experience know that this is a terrible and odious practice and should never be condoned in the U.S. We are a better nation than that.”
McCain added, “All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today.” As for his GOP rivals, McCain said, “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”
In light of McCain’s response, Faiz raised a good point. By taking a firm stand against waterboarding, McCain is not only one up on Giuliani, he’s also one up on Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey, who refused to say whether he thought the barbaric tactic qualified as torture.
If McCain thinks Giuliani “should know what it is,” does McCain think the Attorney General should know, too? Apparently not.
The Huffington Post asked the McCain campaign whether the senator will join Senate Dems in possibly holding up Mukasey’s confirmation until he clears up his stance on waterboarding. A McCain aide responded, “The Judiciary Committee process is ongoing and Sen. McCain believes that Judge Mukasey deserves an up-or-down vote based on his qualifications for the office of Attorney General.”
Not exactly straight talk, now is it?
As for Giuliani’s lunacy, Joe Conason hammers the former mayor quite nicely today.
Such lazy-minded cliches — “it depends on the circumstances” — are emblematic of the moral relativism that swaggering absolutists like Giuliani claim to despise in liberalism. […]
If tough Rudy does go waterboarding, however, he should have no illusions about its status under American law and tradition. As a former federal prosecutor, he should know that the United States has indicted, convicted and punished a substantial number of torturers whose offenses included waterboarding or, as it used to be known, “the water cure.” […]
When he argues that it is an act whose significance depends on who does it and under what circumstances, does he mean to suggest that the Japanese war criminals were wrong, but the CIA is right? Does he think that laws and treaties apply only to foreigners and not to Americans? Or that the president can abrogate those laws and treaties at will? That is a formula for tyranny — and it was rejected by Republicans and Democrats alike, all much better men than he.
Well said.