McCain Backs Bush on Torture Despite '05 Betrayal
With his "no" vote yesterday on the Senate bill to ban waterboarding by the CIA, John McCain caved in the face of yet another betrayal by George W. Bush. President Bush, after all, stabbed McCain in the back with a 2005 signing statement that defanged the Detainee Treatment Act the now-presumptive GOP presidential nominee championed in the Senate. But in his never-ending quest to appease his party's conservative base, McCain revealed that no humiliation at the hands of George Bush is too great.
By a 51-45 vote, the Senate approved an intelligence bill that would restrict the CIA in its interrogation techniques, banning waterboarding and limiting the agency to 19 less aggressive tactics outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual. But after the House passed similar legislation in December, the White House predictably promised a veto, arguing the bill "would prevent the United States from conducting lawful interrogations of senior al Qaeda terrorists to obtain intelligence needed to protect Americans from attack."
Just as predictably, John McCain kowtowed to the White House in just his latest affirmation of a de facto Bush third term. As the Washington Post noted:
But McCain sided with the Bush administration yesterday on the waterboarding ban passed by the Senate, saying in a statement that the measure goes too far by applying military standards to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws already forbid waterboarding, and he urged the administration to declare it illegal.
"Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a clear violation" of laws and treaties, McCain said.
Not according to George W. Bush. After all, it was President Bush's December 30, 2005 signing statement on McCain's amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act that made waterboarding and other acts of torture the continuing policy of the United States.
With his signing statement, Bush himself sought to create a legal basis for his administration's past and future criminality. In a nutshell, Bush signed into law a bill he had every intention of continuing to violate.
Bush, of course, had opposed John McCain's torture bill throughout the fall of 2005. But when the House and Senate passed McCain's amendment to the defense authorization bill by veto proof margins, Bush held a December 15 press conference with McCain, announcing his support for the language explicitly saying that that the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in US custody is illegal regardless of where they are held.
As the Boston Globe reported, that supposed compromise lasted just as long as it took for President Bush to issue his signing statement two weeks later on December 30. When it comes to what constitutes "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees," the President proclaimed that he indeed would be the decider:
The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.
That shocking presidential power grab, along with Alberto Gonzales' 2005 lies to Congress about the administration's torture policy, served to emasculate John McCain's amendment. It's no wonder McCain vowed in November that he would eschew signing statements altogether. When a bill reached his desk, he "would only sign it or veto," adding:
"I would never issue a signing statement. It is wrong, and it should not be done."
Of course, George W. Bush has done many wrong things to John McCain that were wrong. As I detailed two years ago, McCain's endless quest for the presidency allows him to push aside all the indignities the Bush camp (many of whom are now assisting his campaign) inflicted upon him:
McCain's laser beam focus on the White House apparently enables him to forget the painful memories of character assassination, smears and lies the Bush camp dished out during the 2000 campaign. After McCain's upset win in the New Hampshire primary, Bush operatives during the critical South Carolina contest phoned voters with push polls implying McCain was anti-Catholic, his wife Cindy a drug addict, and that he had fathered an illegitimate black child with a prostitute. (In reality and quite admirably, they'd adopted a baby from an orphanage in Bangladesh) McCain even received an early version of the Swift Boat treatment, with allegations that his Vietnam War captivity in Hanoi left him mentally unstable. All of these slurs came as candidate Bush chastised McCain that he couldn't "take the high horse and then claim the low road." It's no wonder he angrily rejected Bush's feigned attempt in 2000 to bury the hatchet, with McCain telling candidate Bush, "Don't give me that shit. And get your hands off me."
But in his desperation to reach the Oval Office, John McCain is willing to endure almost any abuse by the Bush administration. That includes betrayal on a subject near and dear to his heart, the torture of prisoners. As John McCain now says of George W. Bush, "He calls me Johnny Mac."
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