One anonymous White House official told the Times that nobody in the administration anticipated "the avalanche of opinion that would be assembled on the other side of what seemed like a pretty abstruse legal issue." The inability of the administration to conceive of the Geneva Conventions' protection against torture as anything but an "abstruse legal issue" explains the administration's strategy. A frightened public wouldn't object to a little tinkering with the Geneva Conventions, they predicted, giving the public little credit for understanding that the same Conventions protect Americans. If we break the rules, we can expect other countries to follow our lead.

Americans also understand that we can't defend ourselves by trading our values for the illusion of safety.

The debate over these bills is not about America's security against terrorism. It is, rather, a referendum on Americans' willingness to remain what they have been through a Revolution, a second British invasion, a Civil War, two world wars and assorted police actions: a people who choose not to validate the atrocities of their enemies by stooping to their enemies' level.

McCain answers his critics in similar terms.

The Times reports no details of any new administration proposal, and McCain said that no compromise has yet been discussed. It would be better for the Senate to do nothing than to act in haste. The president has authorized indefinite detentions without trials, torture and abuse of detainees, rendition and secret prisons, and the warrantless interception of communications within our borders. A president who has recognized no limits on his powers now claims an urgent need for legislation to ratify his conduct. He had hoped to argue that Democrats who opposed him were soft on terror, but the Republican Gang of Three have blunted that attack. The rest of the GOP should join them to protect the government from the president's thirst for executive power.

It is, of course, easier for Republican senators to take a principled stand this year, when Bush is as popular as chicken pox. It's amusing to read Senator Graham's observation that "[t]here are three branches of government, not one." That's been true for the last six years, although it seems to have escaped the notice of the Republican Party. Where have you been, Senator?