Normalizing torture

I keep thinking about that Rasmussen poll that had 58% of Americans calling for us to waterboard the Christmas day bomber. Perhaps it is a bad poll, I don't know. I read that he has worked as a Republican pollster. But even that is disturbing.

Just on a whim, I googled the phrase "Republicans against torture." My Safari browser found a lot of things that Republicans oppose, or at least common search phrases. They included Obama, healthcare, Obamacare, and even Sarah Palin. But no torture.

But I did find stories on torture and Republicans. Stories like this one where a retired Lt. Colonel named Alan West is running for Congress in Florida. He very nearly went to prison for staging a mock execution on a suspected Iraqi insurgent. West now says that he might have been wrong about that Iraqi, but he would do that all again. Further, he says that no one was even tortured at Abu Ghraib. He often jokes about his own torture to Republican audiences, telling them that wasn't torture, "seeing Rosie O'Donnell naked would be torture." Turns out he isn't just a open torturer, but also an ass. Those Republican crowds love him, though.

To be fair, his initial run for Congress included no support from the RNC who wanted nothing to do with him during the 2006 election. But I wonder what his fundraising efforts are now. During the 2008 primary season, John McCain (to his credit) was booed by Republican audiences when he called waterboarding both torture and wrong. Booed. Liz Cheney still says that waterboarding isn't torture, and that sentiment is echoed by the Republican candidate in the special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Or watch here as Republican Congressman Aaron Schock openly defends what he calls "alternative torture" techniques, as long as they save American lives.

I recall so vividly when conservative evangelicals wrung their hands over their concern that Bill Clinton's sexual misdeeds would somehow teach the children bad morals. And remember, Clinton may be a lot of things, but he never said that what he did was right or ok. He may have lied about it in the beginning (actually he did) but I never recall that moment where he justfied his actions as moral or appropriate. On the contrary, Republicans commonly defend these techniques. And the people most likely to say they vote their "moral values" are at best, silent. At worst, they cheer the torturer against those they see as foes in a spiritual war.

I should not be shocked by any of this. As I told SOF this afternoon, I fully expect the next GOP candidate for President to be a torture apologist. The fact that so many Republicans consider themselves Christian makes that all the more troubling. The fact that Dick Cheney's warped morality may be seeping into the American culture is simply appalling.

I do know that the next time I hear a Republican talk about moral values, I just might puke.