Column pimping

I concur with the whole thing, without reservation.

Y'know, I kinda suspected you might. ;)

I have to admit, though, I'm not sure how much difference the law will make either way. Army field manuals aren't quite equipotent to the UCMJ, but "it's in the FM" is a safe answer to just about any question, even if the asker has stars & the askee is still waiting for his first stripe. If the brass have discarded the published rulebook, a civilian law change, however noble a symbol, isn't likely to change things.

You have more experience than I do in these matters, so I'm happy to work under the assumption you're right. That said, it is important as a symbol, and as a diagnostic as to how the Congress as a whole, as opposed to the President, feels about these things. I'd be a lot more worried about the moral climate of this country if a majority of the Senate, or even a majority of Republican Senators, felt differently about torture.

In a similar vein, it's always been interesting to me to note that, however much the national Democratic party gets accused of being gutless peacenik appeasers, when it came time to vote on going war in Afghanistan, only one lone Democratic congresswoman and no Senators voted against the resolution. You may disagree, but I've always taken that as pretty substantive evidence that the party'll do the right thing when the country is threatened.

I guess my previous comment doesn't address the idea that the *vote* on the bill could be much more valuable than whatever happens after it's enacted or discarded. Like you said, the very fact that nine Senators and the President are so afraid of a simple (and indeed, as I said before, probably toothless) affirmation of these basest human rights...well, it disturbs me much more than the tripe that typically makes headlines. It flies so in the face of Bush's much-professed religious foundation, and at such a primitive, juvenile level of Christian moral understanding, that I have to wonder whether faith really does play a significant role in his life, or is just a political angle he's exploited for six years and more.

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." - Luke 6:43-45

Well put. I know a lot of the time conservatives are skeptical, if not outright scornful, of the various big ideas liberals have for government solutions, because conservatives simply don't see how you can trust the government to be competent. And it's a not-completely-unfair point.

At the same time, I think something similar cuts the other way - I think librerals tend to be equally scornful of the idea that the government can really do much towards moral issues in this country, or the idea that you can ever have a particularly good idea of what a politician truly believes, based on his media image. From the sound of things, you may be coming to that position yourself, at least with regard to GWB. If so, based on my memories of what it was like to be disillusioned about Bill Clinton's moral character, I don't envy where you're at.