Viva W, Torture Si!

The Editors have King George W. dead to rights:

With WPE’s veto of a bill banning waterboarding, we now have a list of nine laws that our President thinks are so wrong-headed that he can’t simply ignore them like he usually does with laws he doesn’t like. The offending legislative initiatives, in order:

1. Funding for potentially life-saving research using stem cells.
2. Benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet, that we might someday leave that country.
3. Again, funding for potentially life-saving research.
4. Health insurance for children.
5. Water resources act: the one veto which it can be plausibly argued had something to do with fiscal discipline.
6. A bill that would ban the use of thimerosal, which crazy people think has something to do with autism. Sure, okay, whatever.
7. Again, health insurance for children.
8. A defense authorization bill pocket-vetoed at the last minute for somewhat puzzling reasons (Jack Daniels)
9. A ban on (some kinds of) torture

So to recap: health insurance for children: very bad. Potential cures for crippling disease: very bad. Spending on infrastructure: occasionally bad, but way to close the barn door after burning the building down. Mercury in vaccines: not a problem (which, to give him credit, is probably true). Torture: absolutely vital. Jack Daniels: awesome.

Of all of those, asserting the unilateral right to torture other human beings is perhaps the lowest, although denying kids health care and life-saving research are pretty far up there, too. It's like the Kentucky Derby of the most morally offensive act!