TRADITIONAL VALUES….Janet Hook and Richard Simon write today about the political price John McCain may be paying for his stance on torture and coercive interrogation, and it contains this remarkable paragraph:
“This very definitely is going to put a chilling effect on the tremendous strides he has made in the conservative evangelical community,” said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of several conservative activists who support Bush’s proposal on interrogation techniques.
Apparently an unrestricted right for the CIA to abuse prisoners is now a traditional value. Crikey.
So what’s going to happen? As much as I appreciate McCain’s stand on this issue, I suspect that he’ll agree to watered-down language, as he did with last year’s torture bill, and that this will be further watered down by a presidential signing statement that McCain knows full well will accompany the bill. So the end result will probably be: not much. But I hope he proves me wrong.
