Tortured Republicans

By David K. Shipler

A flicker of discomfort crossed Herman Cain’s face in last Saturday’s debate as he was asked about torture. He appeared to be considering the question. For a moment that lasted only as long as his first two sentences, he seemed about to take the high road: “I do not agree with torture, period.” Then he came up with an idea suitable for a banana republic: Leave it to “our military leaders to determine what is torture and what is not torture.” Yet in a final twist, he took a position different from military leaders’ by endorsing waterboarding, which (he may not have known) the Army Field Manual explicitly forbids. He said it wasn't torture. Michele Bachmann followed suit. Rick Santorum had already announced last May that John McCain, who was tortured for five years as a P.O.W. in North Vietnam, doesn’t understand the issue.

Behind this spectacle is an unpleasant truth: Republicans who can’t kick the addiction to torture have been enabled by President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress, who could have created an investigative commission to nail down the facts, expose them to public scrutiny, and puncture the myth that reliable information is obtained by abusing prisoners.