Media adulation for John McCain is getting a little out of hand.
On MSNBC this morning, anchor Monica Novotny claimed that President Bush’s impending veto of the Intelligence Authorization Bill would put “a chill” in his alliance with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Bush is vetoing the bill because of an amendment that puts the CIA’s interrogation program under the standards of Army Field Manual, which Novotny claims McCain supports.
“He doesn’t like a provision that’s been pushed by, you guessed it, Sen. McCain,” claimed Novotny.
That sound you hear is me banging my head against my desk in frustration.
If MSNBC personalities want to praise McCain for his position on the Intelligence Authorization Bill, fine. It’s not good journalism, but whatever. But these same personalities should at least know what McCain’s position is — and not credit him for taking one position, when he actually voted in the opposite direction.
Yes, McCain used to criticize U.S. torture policies, but last month, when push came to shove and McCain’s principles ran into conflict with McCain’s political agenda, his principles lost. The bill Bush is going to veto tomorrow? McCain voted against it — despite what MSNBC’s national television audience was led to believe this afternoon.
To briefly recap — in case MSNBC needs the background for its on-air correction — a spending bill to finance the nation’s intelligence efforts went to conference several weeks ago. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) added an important provision requiring one interrogation standard for the entire U.S. government. In an important policy shift, the Feinstein measure required the intelligence community to abide by the same interrogation standards articulated in the Army Field Manual, which, of course, prohibit torture.
For McCain, this should have been an easy one. After all, he recently argued, rather forcefully, during a Republican presidential debate, “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.”
That was then. When the nation looked to the senator take a stand on principle, McCain balked. He was against torture before he was for it.
[T]he Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, which contained a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) establishing one interrogation standard across the government. The bill requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding.
Just hours ago, the Senate voted in favor of the bill, 51-45.
Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding.
It’s a real profile in courage, isn’t it? As Brian Beutler noted, “The waterboarding section … is the reason the president’s threatening to veto it. It’s the reason McCain sneaked into the chamber, voted with his party against it, and sneaked back out.”
It’s not that there was no Republican support for the policy — Sens. Collins, Hagel, Lugar, Smith and Snowe — all voted with the Dems — it’s just that McCain, who claims to oppose torture, wasn’t among them.
Marty Lederman considered the details.
Senator McCain rightly insists that the U.S. may not (i) torture; (ii) engage in cruel treatment prohibited by Common Article 3; or (iii) engage in conduct that shocks the conscience, under the McCain Amendment. He also insists that waterboarding violates each of these legal restrictions, that the Bush Administration’s legal analysis has been dishonest and flatly wrong, and that we need “a good faith interpretation of the statutes that guide what is permissible in the CIA program.”
The Feinstein Amendment would have accomplished all of these objectives, but Senator McCain voted against it, presumably because he wishes that the CIA be permitted to continue the use of other of its enhanced techniques, apart from waterboarding. Those techniques are reported to include stress positions, hypothermia, threats to the detainee and his family, severe sleep deprivation, and severe sensory deprivation. Senator McCain has not explained which of these he thinks are not torture and cruel treatment, nor which he would wish to preserve for use by the CIA. But if the President does as he has promised and follows Senator McCain’s lead by vetoing this bill, the CIA will continue to assert the right to use all of these techniques — and possibly waterboarding, as well.
By contrast, Senator Clinton supports the Feinstein amendment, and Senator Obama does, too.
If Senator McCain believes that there are particular “enhanced” techniques that are not in the Field Manual, but that are also not torture or cruel treatment, and wishes to allow the CIA to use them, he should identify what they are, and offer legislation that would authorize those, and those only, techniques, in addition to those listed in the Field Manual. Otherwise, despite all his worthy efforts in this area, Senator McCain is now facilitating the CIA’s use of techniques that are unlawful, including some that are torture even by Senator McCain’s own lights.
But that’s all right, of course, because John McCain is a man who believes in principles — weak, malleable principles.
Note to MSNBC’s Monica Novotny: we’ll look forward to your on-air correction.