But it's really too bad since I expected more of McCain than the other Republican candidates (except perhaps Ron Paul who you know what he stands for 100%).

Obama's going to eat him for lunch either way though and he knows it. Maybe he's just shoring up his position with conservatives for when he resumes senatorial duties and is now a major player in his party.

Do what McCain once suggested and set up the Army Field Manual as the “gold standard” for all agencies including the CIA, and allow the CIA to employe alternative techniques but ONLY AFTER they subject those techniques to confidential, bi-partisan, inter-branch (executive, congressional, judicial) review to ensure the specifics are kept secret but also adhere to the fundamental principles forbidding torture and anything that smacks of it.

Well, the administration is never going to go for that level of oversight.

And frankly, I don't think it's feasible. Getting congress and the courts involved to approve each “enhanced interrogation”?

And there's this piece from last week the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-na-t…

So, while waterboarding may not be a tecnique currently used, the Bush Administration can authorize its use in the future if they feel that it is necessary.

In the end, I wonder why the following type of flexible but confidential approach has not been discussed (or has it?), to wit …

Do what McCain once suggested and set up the Army Field Manual as the “gold standard” for all agencies including the CIA, and allow the CIA to employe alternative techniques but ONLY AFTER they subject those techniques to confidential, bi-partisan, inter-branch (executive, congressional, judicial) review to ensure the specifics are kept secret but also adhere to the fundamental principles forbidding torture and anything that smacks of it.

Here's McCain's explanation for the vote.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/…

“The set of interrogation methods authorized for current use is narrower than before, and it does not today include waterboarding,” Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, says in remarks prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee.
“There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law,” he said.

Besides waterboarding is already an illegal interrogation technique in the US. In the past the US has prosecuted not only enemy soldiers that used it on us, but we have also prosecuted and imprisoned our own soldiers that have used it on others.

The only reason that we've even having this conversation about waterboarding is that Bush wants it to be legal and is hiding behind those secret DoJ memos that show that waterboarding is in fact legal. The Bushies refuse to release them.

“Yesterday, Congress did what was necessary if they wanted to make waterboarding an illegal interrogation process. However, they did more than that in this bill, which is why McCain rightly opposed it, and why Bush will wind up vetoing it. They basically gave terrorists a manual for American interrogation preparation. They went too far; they could have passed a very specific ban on waterboarding without having to publish the CIA's approved list of techniques.”

I hope that if Congress gave McCain an up or down vote on waterboarding, he would honor his prior position. Unfortunately, in Washington, there are very few (if any) simple up or down votes.

The rest of Morrissey's post provides other information worth considering, in particular, the update at the end.