On the Bright Side

Marty Lederman must have been channeling my despair over the seeming permanence of torture on the American landscape, and he brings us some encouraging quotes on the subject from two of our top-tier Presidential candidates.

Barack Obama (April 23d):

To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

John Edwards (May 23d):

We must always seek to protect our national security by aggressively gathering intelligence in accordance with proven methods. Yet we cannot do so by abandoning human rights and the rule of law. As two former generals recently wrote in the Washington Post, "If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable ...we drive ... undecideds into the arms of the enemy." And we must avoid actions that will give terrorists or even other nations an excuse to abandon international law. As president, I will close Guantanamo Bay, restore habeas corpus, and ban torture. Measures like these will help America once again achieve its historic moral stature -- and lead the world toward democracy and peace.

Of course, there's one other candidate conspicuously absent there - the lady in the lead.

I believe that Edwards and Obama are sincere. But they will be up against a LOT of resistance from a complex that treats the Presidency, especially a Democratic presidency, with contempt. This train has left the station and it will take supreme effort to return it.