The Torture Vote

The news isn't that Alberto Gonzales won confirmation by the Senate for Attorney General. The news is that 36 Senators voted against him, and that several days of debate highlighted the issue of torture as never before. Even a vote that Gonzales got--from the freshman Senator Salazar of Colorado--came only after Gonzales sent him a letter in which he pledged in writing to oppose torture in all its forms.
Bloomberg.com: U.S.

Gonzales may yet prove to be a millstone around the Bushneck, provided investigations into his questionable conduct in Texas continue. Europe is paying much more attention to the war crimes trial than is Island America but there may be fallout from those quarters as well.

In the meantime, Blue Staters must not relax vigilance on the topic of torture, including pressuring Hollywood to stop depicting torture as some sort of obligatory and sensationalistic interrogation technique. It is seldom used for interrogation, and almost never with success. Since people get their ideas about torture more from the movies and TV than from the news or even politicians, this is important.

And even more scrutiny must be focused on Iraqi prisons and Guantanamo.