Open Thread - Retreating White House Edition

by Steve

Amidst some signs that the White House is looking for a face-saving retreat and compromise on detainee treatment issues with the Gang of Five GOP senators who oppose them, Rove’s plan to ram the “weak on terror” message at Democrats has flopped, even if he has bamboozled the usual members of the Beltway press corps into adopting the GOP storyline once again.

But what is more interesting is that while John McCain makes the correct point that we can’t sink to the level of our enemies and still claim a moral superiority over them, he is getting fragged by the cultist conservative base that has no problem modeling the behavior of our terrorist enemies to make themselves feel they are tough on terrorists. Of course many of these armchair warriors never put on a uniform or fought for their country in battle, and none of them spent five years in the Hanoi Hilton either.

The White House misread this “train wreck” as just another opportunity to roll McCain and Warner. Instead, they have found that all three of them, including Lindsey Graham, veterans all unlike the faux warriors in the White House, take this issue and the views of the military very seriously. We may now see another 8 to 10 GOP senators announce this week that they support the Gang of Five as well.

OK, it is your turn.