The Emperor Strikes Back

Just to refresh our readers on the latest McCain caper (i.e. fighting for terrorists' rights):

I think that if McCain's chances at the 2008 GOP presidential nomination were still on life support, this stunt would pull the plug. But the so-called "maverick outsider" is in fact a creature of the Beltway, immersed to his beady little eyeballs in all the "corruption" he preeningly and pharisiaclly decries, and cannot help but soak up all its faux "wisdom." And nothing is more appealing or irresistable to such a roaring moral narcissist than to use one "moralistic" crusade to engineer his own party's defeat in order to set himself up as its white-chargered savior. And if several thousand more American civilians have to die to get him to the White House? Well, I suppose they'll have "died for a worthy cause."

Toward the end of last week it appeared that, to-be-expected Enemy Media reports to the contrary, the McCain Mutineers had beat a hasty retreat on their intra-party dispute with the White House.

The first counter-blow was a blunt threat from Majority Leader Bill Frist to filibuster the MM's alternative bill:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist signaled yesterday that he and other White House allies will filibuster a bill dealing with the interrogation and prosecution of detainees if they cannot persuade a rival group of Republicans to rewrite key provisions opposed by President Bush. Frist's chief of staff, Eric M. Ueland, called the dissidents' bill 'dead.'"...

Frist struck a jarring tone, telling reporters that the trio's bill is 'unacceptable,' despite its majority support. 'For a bill to pass,' Frist said, 'it's got to preserve our intelligence programs, and it must protect classified information from terrorists.' He said 'the President's bill achieves those two goals, but that the Warner-McCain-Graham bill falls short.'

Evidently Senator McCain wasn't expecting so stout a push-back, as the subsequent "compromise" his coven of rebels reached with the Bush Administration constituted a decisive victory for the latter:

* Precludes a private right of action (i.e., the ability of a person to enforce in court) in either habeas corpus litigation or a civil case, the "rights" granted under the Geneva Conventions;

* Specifies the war crimes that will comprise violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and says no foreign or international law can be used by US courts to further define those crimes;

* Gives the President further authority to promulgate higher standards of conduct for terrorist interrogators;

* Defines, reasonably well, the "cruel or inhuman treatment" vague terms used in the McCain amendment of 2005 and Common Article 3;

* Restores the definitions for "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" in the pre-McCain Amendment Title 18 Section 2340, US Code; BUT

* Retains the McCain amendment definitions as well.

The last one is the PR fig leaf graciously handed to the Supreme Chancellor as a face-saving gesture, allowing him a symbolic claim to having upheld his "anti-torture" principles while the White House walks away with nearly all the substance (which has disrupted at least eight al Qaeda plots since 9/11).

Don't think so? Just review the President's post-deal statement versus that of "Sailor":

I had a single test for the pending legislation, and that's this: Would the CIA operators tell me whether they could go forward with the program, that is a program to question detainees to be able to get information to protect the American people. I'm pleased to say that this agreement preserves the single most potent tool we have in protecting America from terrorist attacks, and that is the CIA free to question the world's most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets.

Sounds unequivocal to me. At the very least, Dubya is convinced that he got what he wanted.

Now listen to his arch-nemesis:

The agreement that we've entered into gives the President the tools that he needs to continue to fight the war on terror and bring these evil people to justice. I also believe that it's consistent with the standards under the Detainee Treatment Act, and there is no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved, and this business people say, "Who's the winners and who's the losers?" There's none. We're all winners because we've been able to come to an agreement through a process of negotiation and consensus.

This, peeps, is a lame "victory" speech. McCain has to emphasize - doubtless for the ears of GOP primary voters - that his obnoxious dissidence hasn't damaged the President' war-fighting capabilities, as well as acknowledging that the very same terrorists he was trying his damndest to elevate to undeserved legal protections are "evil." He "believes" the deal is "consistent" with his DTA - not exactly a bold declaration of certitude. And in a roundabout way he can say that he's upheld the GC because his attempt to re-write it to al Qaeda's liking was comprehensively squished.

Annnnnd, in the mean time, it took away the PR fig leaf that the McCainiacs were providing to their "Democratic friends" to cover their politically untenable opposition to any measure that wouldn't bend over backwards to pamper captured jihadis. As Byron York points out in his comprehensive recap, the Donks' kook base, led by the ACLU, will mount irresistable pressure on Dirty Harry, Crazy Nancy and their minions to resist this "compromise" legislation to the death right before Election Day.

So all's well that ends well, right?

Come on, this is Darth Queeg we're talking about. And he made sure he got in the last, spiteful word:

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) named three measures that he said would no longer be allowed under a provision barring techniques that cause serious mental or physical suffering by U.S. detainees: extreme sleep deprivation, forced hypothermia and "waterboarding," which simulates drowning. He also said other "extreme measures" would be banned.

McCain's remarks were unusual because public officials involved in the lengthy public debate about U.S. interrogation practices have rarely made specific references to the CIA's actions, choosing instead to make general claims about the need for rough interrogations or a desire to stop abusive behavior.

"It's clear we have to have the high moral ground," said McCain, a former POW tortured by prison guards in Vietnam, on CBS's Face The Nation. "I am confident that some of the abuses that were reportedly committed in the past will be prohibited in the future."

On behalf of al Qaeda and every other Islamist terrorist out there, thank you, Senator McCain. Now they know what techniques they don't have to worry about, and by inference which by-definition less onerous ones are still on the table.

Cap'n Ed notes that SML Frist said on ABC's This Week that, "No responsible person would list the specific techniques allowed and disallowed in a public forum." But a RINO Sith lord obsessed with revenge for power denied would.

"From hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake...I spit...my last breath...at thee..." So Khan Noonien Singh intoned at Admiral Kirk at the end of Star Trek II as, with his last living act, he activated the Genesis device in an attempt to take Kirk and his crew down with him. John McCain isn't nearly that flamboyant, but as his beans-spilling on MTP illustrates yet again, he does have the same penchant for grand, (politically) suicidal gestures - if on a far pettier, more spiteful scale.