Slip Sliding Away and the Democrats: Is Torture Torture or Not?

The Senate Democrats are not acting on their own and would not be issuing these new equivocal statements without first being signaled by the President-Elect's team and possibly Obama himself that they are considering some "alternative sets of procedures" for interrogations. Party members don't go off on their own in such a dramatic fashion without first checking with the leaders of their Party. 

This shift by Feinstein and Wyden is, unfortunately, consistent with signals coming from the Obama team within the last few weeks on what they are planning to do about the Guantanamo detainees, about creating a new kind of court ("National Security Courts"), and about continuing "preventive detention." If they do go ahead with these plans, they will have joined unequivocally the no man's land realm that the Bush cabal has been occupying.

[Update: Feinstein's office added in a communication with Michael Scherer of Time magazine the following to what she had previously issued: saying "that she still wants a law that mandates the Field Manual as the sole interrogation standard, but that she may be willing to be talked back from that position by the Obama Administration, if it chooses to do so." This confirms my assessment that Feinstein and Wyden were reacting to signals from the Obama team - DL.

Feinstein further added in her comments to Scherer: "I plan to introduce legislation in January that would close Guantanamo, make the Army Field Manual the single standard for interrogations, prohibit contractors from being used to carry out interrogations and provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with access to detainees."

This "addition" of hers, however, does not add anything to what she said previously. It merely restates her vacillation - DL.] 

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