FNS Panel on the McCain/White House Compromise (VIDEO)

September 24, 2006 Politics In General, Video, War on Terror Comments

The second and final Panel segment focused on the recent compromise between the RINOs and the White House on detainee treatment, interrogation, and military tribunals. They were discussing who won in this compromsie: the White House or McCain et al?

WILLIAMS: It looks to me like the president won. It looks to me like the president won. And what it comes down to is that it’s going to be on the president’s desk. He has to be the one that will say this is allowed. and he…

LIASSON: But he has to tell Congress that.

WILLIAMS: Well, ideally, I think that’s what the Democrats and Senator McCain say. They want him to write it out, put it in the federal register, allow for oversight. The danger is that he would do something and say something and then subsequently say, “Well, we had to do that in that moment.”

But the whole notion that torture is allowed I just find reprehensible.

HUME: Well…

BARNES: It’s not allowed.

I love the way Brit ended this segment…

HUME: Look, this business about torture being allowed is a whopper. We know what torture is. Torture has a definition. It’s been laid out. It is not permissible under U.S. policy, and the CIA isn’t engaging in it. So can we please get that off the table?

This was about what John McCain thought something would look like. He now has decided that, with this new language, the same thing in a sense, it won’t look that way. He’s happy. The White House is happy.

Watch the video here.