Hugh Hewitt’s side-kick, Dean Barnett is all for it. Glenn Reynolds links approvingly, while of course being offended that anyone would think he supports torture. Money quote from a self-addressed series of questions on Hewitt’s blog-page:
Dean Barnett: … [T]he undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool.
8) That’s a very clinical way of putting it. Why don’t you go have yourself water-boarded and see how you like it.
DB: No thanks. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it. I’m sure it’s extremely unpleasant. Does it rise to the level of ‘torture’? That’s for each individual to decide.
9) What do you think?
DB: I don’t care. If some body of linguists or semanticists convened a weekend retreat in Cambridge, impartially studied the issue and labeled it torture, I still wouldn’t care. The welfare of terrorists is not my concern. Even if all the Jack Bauer-type crap you see on ’24’ was the best way to go, I’d still be okay with it.
10) But it’s not just terrorists. It’s suspected terrorists. Surely that bothers you.
DB: It does. It’s inevitable that innocent people will be subjected to this kind of treatment. But this is war, and in war we make moral compromises.
I don’t know if Hewitt, a professed Christian, agrees. It seems odd that very complicated issues like when life might actually begin and end are subject to absolute certainty. But whether something is "torture" or not is up "for each individual to decide." When the right needs to defend the indefensible, a little moral relativism never hurts. But there’s a more devastating moment in the post: on one of the fudnamentals of a civilized society, Barnett bravely asserts:
"I don’t care."
Yes, the Bush flunkies just got a little more honest and a lot more sickening.
The Dish 