PUBLIC MARKS with tags bush & torture

In a political about-face, George W. Bush has bowed to the inevitable, agreeing to a blanket U.S. ban on torture and ceding the moral high ground to long-time rival John McCain. Bush had threatened to use his presidential veto for the first time to block McCain's measures and Dick Cheney lobbied Republicans to give U.S. intelligence agents immunity, earning him the moniker "Vice-President for Torture." After a Wednesday congressional vote, in which 121 Republicans bucked Bush, the U.S. president sat in the Oval Office with McCain yesterday, praising the Arizona senator he had beaten for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination. "Senator McCain has been a leader to make sure that the United States of America upholds the values of America as we fight and win this war on terror," Bush said.

In an unusual bipartisan rebuke to the Bush administration, the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed Senator John McCain's measure to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world.

Torture's Terrible Toll Abusive interrogation tactics produce bad intel, and undermine the values we hold dear. Why we must, as a nation, do better. By Sen. John McCain

As news analyst Michael Gawenda, writing in the Australian daily the Age, noted incredulously, "When the president of the United States, under repeated questioning and under pressure, has to declare, as he did [during a stop in Panama], 'We do not torture,' you know that even his allies in Congress no longer believe him."