Getting back -

LVQ - please don’t obfuscate over torture. Re read my post - while I don’t consider waterboarding torture (which makes me a bad person) even if I stipulate that it is it has no impact on the evidence that can be admitted as you allege. The Miranda and right to counsel tests will be triggered much sooner than we ever get to a torture test. If we do get a torture test then we will have seen the Government get past both Miranda and right to counsel for the accused. If that comes to pass (I highly doubt it will) then the Obama Admin will have rolled back civil liberties and Constitutional protections much further than Bush ever did.

Dr Cordell - What can I say? You are vastly superior to me morally. I will have to send you a Certificate of Moral Superiority just like I do to SoCons who call me RINO because I am pro choice.

My moral failings present me with few choices for redemption. Perhaps I should vote in someone to office who will say things like ” this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. ” Someone who will do away with the “excesses and lack of protections” endemic to the military commissions system (something progressives condemned - until this week - as an unworkable “parallel justice system”). Yes - I could do that and perhaps cleanse myself of my sin.

Maybe when that has happened our allies will offer more help with Afghanistan (after all - the reason they wouldn’t before was our moral failings and , as a practical matter, if we just correct those failings they will help us again).

And if I am really faithful, I can simply ignore any instances where the leader of this massive, communal moral redemption goes back on his own sermons and sends a guy through the Military Commissions system. I can ignore it much the same way evangelicals ignored Jimmy Swaggart (yes - he still has a following) and Jim Baker. Staying with the charismatic leader and ignoring his hypocrisy while condemning his critics to the hellfire of their sin is the true test of the faithful.