Deferring to an Expert .....

"From public forums in Iowa to the living rooms of New Hampshire and the military towns in South Carolina," says this report from the New York Times' Marka Santora, "Mr. McCain’s message is simple: what America does to its enemies defines America itself."

“One of the things that kept us going when I was in prison in North Vietnam was that we knew that if the situation were reversed, that we would not be doing to our captors what they were doing to us,” McCain is quoted in that story.

But, Santora goes on to report, McCain's stance opposing torture (or, as some prefer to call it, "aggressive interrogation techniques"), may be generating sympathy from those he meets in his campaign to become the Republican candidate for President ..... but not necessarily support.

I've said this before concerning the debate going on in Washington, and across the country, over the Bush administration's efforts to re-define torture. I can't help but think that there are some who bring a unique perspective to the debate, a hard-taught lesson that we can acknowledge ... but, probably, never truly and fully appreciate.

I'm probably the only blogger - and one of the few, people, period - in the Tall City who thinks all of the years our administration has spent in the corporate boardrooms, ivory towers and executive suites of America ... don't give them as much appreciation for torture as they might have gotten from a single day in the Hanoi Hilton.

In this debate, U.S. Senator John McCain is fighting to preserve what he calls "the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions," and he speaks from a horrible experience of aggressive interrogation techniques at the hands of captors who flouted those conventions. I don't care what George, and Dick and Condi say.