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McCain votes for torture

For any of you under the illusion that Sen. John McCain was not just another rightwing Republican politician, that he was "Senator Straight Talk," consider this: McCain voted against a bill that would ban torture of captives detained by the U.S. government or military. It would have simply required that any interrogations follow the limits prescribed in the U.S. Army Field Manual, which doesn't allow water-boarding and other forms of torture allowed by the Bush Administration at its prisons abroad.

McCain's vote was a sop to the red-meat right wingers in the Republican base who confuse the show "24" with reality. He was tortured himself while a prisoner-of-war in North Vietnam, and has spoken out against torture in the past. But now that he needs the votes of the bottom-dwellers, McCain has shown that he is quite willing to throw his principles out of the airplane into the ocean.

Bush has vowed to veto the anti-torture bill if it reaches him, as it probably will very soon.

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