Terrorism, torture, and shared hypocrisy
WASHINGTON - When The
Senator Edward M. Kennedy called the news "shocking" and declared, "This memo and others like it violated the values that we hold dear, undermined our intelligence gathering, and encouraged our enemies to respond in kind."
Much of the outrage focused on the seeming hypocrisy of Bush's signing a law against torture while asserting secret powers to approve acts that many consider torture.
But out on the campaign trail, where candidates of both parties have been asked about torture, there has been anything but clarity on this issue from some of the top contenders.
At last month's Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois declared, "America cannot sanction torture. It's a very straightforward principle, and one we should abide by. Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals and emergency situations, and I will make that judgment at that time. But we cannot have the president of the United States state, as a matter of policy, that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture."
Despite the senator's choice of words, this answer was anything but straightforward: Obama clearly sought to draw a line between official policy ("America cannot sanction torture") and those thorny emergencies when the president has to act behind closed doors ("I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe.")
While appearing to denounce loopholes, he was clearly carving one out.
And surely Obama, as a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, ought to know that if he intends to reserve the right to "make that judgment at that time" in an emergency situation, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel will have to write a secret memo outlining his presidential authority to do so - which seems to be exactly what Bush has done.
At the same debate, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York seconded Obama's ban on torture as "a matter of policy."
Speaking after Obama and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware - who offered a blanket rejection of torture, declaring it to be ineffective - Clinton said, "I agree with what Joe and Barack have said. As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period."
She didn't elaborate, leaving unclear whether she also agreed with Obama's suggestion that official policy might not cover all emergencies.
Other Democrats - including Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut - were unequivocal in ruling out torture.
Republican candidates were asked about torture at their May 15 debate in South Carolina. Senator John McCain of Arizona, a former POW, offered a moving denunciation of torture, but left open the same door that Obama did.
Asked if he would use torture to extract information from a terror suspect who is believed to know about an imminent attack on US soil, McCain called it a "million-to-one scenario" but suggested he would, indeed, approve torture.
Representative Duncan Hunter of California made it clear he would approve torture.
Former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and former mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York invoked Bush's distinction between torture and "enhanced interrogation techniques," as Romney put it.
"I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of," Giuliani said. "It shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of."
Surely the interrogators can think of methods that most people would consider torture, and Giuliani seems to be saying he'd approve them.
Putting all the presidential candidates' comments together, one might assume that torture is one area where many would-be leaders believe that, in fact, hypocrisy ought to be the US policy. The choice seems to be hypocrisy in the form of enacting a ban that is followed except when the president decides not to, or hypocrisy in redefining torture methods as "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Not all the candidates occupy this fuzzy ground. Many Democrats rule it out; some Republicans rule it in.
But enough of the leading contenders are somewhere in between to suggest that perhaps that's where the country is.
Despite all the hand-wringing, Americans probably want both a "straightforward" ban on torture and the option to use it when absolutely necessary. It may not be only politicians who are hypocritical.
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond. 