Sunday, April 29, 2007
Death Star
Andrew Sullivan sees Sen. McCain "again saying what he believes" by coming out against torture on today's Fox News Sunday.
It reminds me more of the final scene of Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader's long-assaulted last vestige of humanity leads him to rise up against the Emperor.
Actually, come to think of it, that's giving him too much credit.
Given how McCain caved when it mattered in the torture debate, I think he views his nominal anti-torture stance, like his support for the war, as part of the McCain Brand. There's ample evidence that he's willing to lie and straddle when it comes to these issues; this is merely a continuation of his empty, duplicitous (but oh-so-courageous and straight-talking!) stand.
(Andy McCarthy takes a different view. Unmoved by a lack of evidence or experience, he constructs a fantasy world version of how torturers opreate and calls it "common sense" that torture works. A typically Republican outsized sense of self-love and self-involvement leads him, again typically, to disregard informed opinion from people who know anything about the issue at hand, in this case the military).
It reminds me more of the final scene of Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader's long-assaulted last vestige of humanity leads him to rise up against the Emperor.
Actually, come to think of it, that's giving him too much credit.
Given how McCain caved when it mattered in the torture debate, I think he views his nominal anti-torture stance, like his support for the war, as part of the McCain Brand. There's ample evidence that he's willing to lie and straddle when it comes to these issues; this is merely a continuation of his empty, duplicitous (but oh-so-courageous and straight-talking!) stand.
(Andy McCarthy takes a different view. Unmoved by a lack of evidence or experience, he constructs a fantasy world version of how torturers opreate and calls it "common sense" that torture works. A typically Republican outsized sense of self-love and self-involvement leads him, again typically, to disregard informed opinion from people who know anything about the issue at hand, in this case the military).
