Torture to become Bush's wedge issue this Fall.

A wedge issue, of course, is one for which one a small but vocal constituent believes passionately and can not give up but for which a majority of Americans are mildly opposed. In this case, spin meisters, mavens of talk radio ranters of the blogosphere are testing out public tolerance for torture. “Do you really care if Arabs are tortured, even some innocent ones, as long as we're taking casualties and fighting terrorism,” seems to be the question. The current bet is that American's will respond, “No.”


How can we keep this from happening?

Absolutely, run on the torture of the liberated. I think it's a brilliant strategy and might consider supporting that campaign financially. Do it.

I mean, 51% view Bush negatively in GALLUP (the GOP poll). They're screwed.

they should run on that. I don't think all of the WMD, Liberation, No-More-Rape-Rooms approaches have gotten the Right very far. This way they appeal to their base, the closeted-homo nascar fan, whose love for thinly-veiled homo-eroticism is exceeded only by their love for the infliction of pain on foreign cultures.

We cannot keep anything from happening.

it's already working against them...it will be nearly impossible for them to spin it in their favor.

is to make sure the public knows what is happening, and make sure they see all the pictures. Words just don't make any impression on Joe Sixpack. Or on Rummy, for that matter, since he got a written report back in January. And of course Georgie's first question about any piece of reading material is "does it have pictures mommy?"

bush*'s POW sex-torture snuff operation IS the issue....

bush* the 'war pResident' morphed into the 'war-crime pResident'

bush*'s main issue is his Iraq war and the photos are the essence of bush*'s Iraq war...now called bush*'s great STUPID war...

lastly, the torture goes to backbone of bush* pResidency: bush*'s great moral clarity...and it's just too hard to believe that crap anymore, given the nature of bush*'s POW sex-torture snuff operations....

1. The torture would not have happened, if we did not go into war in the first place.

2. It is obvious that the administration was grossly neglegent in dealing with this and disciplining those responsible.

This makes Bush look bad. If he did not know, then it shows that he is not in charge, if he did know, then it shows that he was complicit with it definitely and maybe even for it. The cannot spin this. They are doing to Iraqis what they said this war was to save them from.

I wish you were right because that would be the worst wedge issue possible. There's nothing so precious to the average American as his self-righteous sense of goodness and justice. He (and she) will tolerate any outrage as long as it's never posed as a question of GOODNESS. (Not MORALITY, which is for fags)

75% of Americans will do whatever it takes to allow them to tell themselves, "I don't approve of torture." That's why we cringe from everything--we don't want these questions put to the test. Torture has been out there for years for anyone to see but nobody wanted to see because we cannot afford to see it. The modern American character really is ill suited to war, and only with vast doses of denial can we prosecute a war at all.