The use of torture is fast becoming a core principle of today's Republican party. My sense is that many in the base are uncomfortable with the defensiveness of the Bush people, and their use of euphemism in this respect. And so the NYT #1 Bestselling author is unabashed in his support of using Gestapo methods against terror suspects, seized without due process and tortured under presidential authority. Yes, of course he's endorsing Giuliani. Who else will do what the quisling, gutless liberals won't? Here is the Hannity-style argument:

"Congress really upset me with how they treated Attorney General Michael Mukasey and how the media pushed this question. Why aren't reporters forcing senators and Congress to answer the same questions about torture? What do you think we should have done? Given them a lawyer, three square meals a day and let planes get hijacked?"

Give them Geneva protections if they are caught on the battlefield, and interrogate them legally. Or if they are seized in the US, they remain covered by the Constitution. Is that so hard to grasp? Meanwhile, here are two more pro-torture pieces in the Washington Times: Murdock's open celebration of torture, and Mona Charen's astonishing two sentences:

Under the U.S. Constitution, treaties are the supreme law of the land. But that hardly settles the matter.

Indeed. When we live under a presidential protectorate, it really is up to one man to make a subjective judgment, isn't it? Even though no international body and no American precedents even question whether waterboarding is torture, the law is suddenly imprecise. It seems to me that the pro-torture right needs to make this explicit: legalize waterboarding explicitly, and withdraw from the Geneva Conventions, and the relevant UN Treaty. If resistance to America becoming a torturing nation is mere "moral preening" why not just get the Congress to do what the Republican base wants? It's far more honest than voting for Giuliani in the sure knowledge that he will torture any terror suspect he can get his hands on, while pretending that America is still the same country it was before 9/11.