This just in:
The Senate voted 51 to 45 on Wednesday afternoon to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects.
Two guesses as to which side McCain took...
I truly hope the two Democratic presidential nominees are not afraid to take McCain to task for this flip flop. And it isn't even simply a case of a Republican supporting torture. The vote was pretty much along party lines, except for Ben Nelson and Lieberman taking the pro-torture side while five Republicans took a stand against it. It's not even the fact that 69% of Americans consider waterboarding to be torture.
What's most important here is that it shows that the straight-talk express is nothing but a prop. This is one issue where McCain actually had a great amount of moral authority, but when it came time to put his money where his mouth is, he failed. Although the vote will be vetoed, it gives Democrats an opportunity to prove, again, to the American public that Republicans just don't understand foreign policy or national security. McCain will undoubtedly use scare-tactics to convince Americans that he is the only one who can protect us against the dangerous brown people, and it isn't enough for Obama and Clinton to decry the "politics of fear." What they need to do is show America why the only thing they have to fear is McCain himself.
UPDATE: By the way, neither Clinton nor Obama decided to make it back to Washington to vote. That sort of changes things. Will either of them be able to call out McCain on his vote if they weren't around to vote on the bill themselves?