Deep Rot

Although Yoo certainly deserves all of the criticism he’s getting today and far more, it’s also important to remember that his analysis only meant something because he was telling the President and his subordinates what they wanted to hear. Consider this, for example, from GOP Moral Sage James Dobson explaining why he’s not wild about John McCain:

Mr. Dobson took issue with a litany of Sen. McCain’s positions, including support for embryonic-stem-cell research and opposition to a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Those stances, plus Sen. McCain’s discussion of global warming and his push to outlaw torture and shut down the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have “frustrated” conservatives “whom McCain seems to have written off,” Mr. Dobson said.

So McCain’s (nominal) opposition to torture is a good reason to be worried about his tendency. And in these policy preferences, as far as I can tell, Dobson is hardly an outlier. The mean and median GOP voter and public official seems to believe (or at least are not strongly oppose) the ideas that 1)the president should be able to torture people at his whim irrespective of any statutes or treaties, and 2)morality requires that the United States Constitution explicitly make gays and lesbians second-class citizens. The fact that so many people share these views is the real problem here.

And as Glenn points out, Democrats in Congress haven’t covered themselves in glory here either. It’s outrageous that it required an ACLU lawsuit, rather than strong Congressional action, to get these documents (which had no business being classified in the first place) declassified.