TWO, THREE, MANY GITMOS! I missed the GOP debate last night, though by most accounts what had been billed beforehand as a debate showcasing the candidates' differences on hot-button social and domestic issues in fact really came to life when the subject turned to chest-thumping war on terror stuff. See here to watch John McCain make a reasoned and stirring case against torture, followed later by Mitt Romney securing his position as People magazine's Sexiest Torturer Alive by strongly endorsing "enhanced interrogation techniques" like waterboarding and remarking that, far from closing Guantanamo Bay's detention center, we should "double" it. This was all in response to a scenario laid out by Brit Hume that borrows heavily from the "ticking time-bomb" tradition of torture justification -- a tradition of positing hypotheticals that basically never occur in such a way in real life.
--Sam Rosenfeld