PUBLIC MARKS from multilinko with tag mccain

Arizona's East Valley Tribune reports that Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona said he agrees with the generals who have criticized Rumsfeld, but that the president has the right to have the people he wants in key positions. "I was asked a long time ago, I think a year and a half or two years ago, if I had confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. I was asked that directly. I said, 'No,'" the Republican senator said during a news conference at his Phoenix office. "But the president has the right and earned the right as the president of the United States to appoint his team — and he has confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. I will continue to work with Secretary Rumsfeld as much as I can as long as he is secretary of Defense. We have to, because we need to win this war."

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.