The Bush Administration Doesn't Believe McCain Was Tortured?

Many of the "enhanced interrogation" methods used on McCain in Vietnam---sleep deprivation, stress positions, standing for long periods, beating, and the witholding of medical treatment---apparently don't fit the Cheney/Bush/Addington/Woo legal definition of torture.

Conservative columnist, Andrew Sullivan, points out, here, the irony (hypocrisy?) that when McCain supported the Military Commisions Act, the "tortured" senator became an "enabler."

In spite of the media narrative of the anti-torture McCain, how might his recent acquiescence alter the story of a courageous war hero?

Tortured Logic: Thoughts on How McCain Could Admit to Being Tortured

If The McCain of Today (who's honest and running for President), as opposed to The McCain of the Past (who was tough but not running for President), wouldn't today---in a strict legal sense----define what he underwent back then in Vietnam as torture, then why do some---including the so-called liberal press ---even tacitly accept, and at times willingly propagate the notion that McCain is soooo "reluctant" to talk about his time as a P.O.W? As if physically, it was some kind of painful experience he couldn't possibly relish sharing?

However, we now know that isn't true because we know now it wasn't torture because now it isn't defined as such. [sigh...] Are these media biased or something? What good does it do Senator McCain for them to present him as some kind of snivelling weakling whose threshold for pain is below what is now legally recognized as torture. In some cases, media are even going further than blatant insinuation, reporting on how McCain loses his bearings at the merest mention of his mortal inadequacy. Take the following example ABC News' David Wright reported a couple months ago:

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

"Please," he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.

Soon after, McCain "collected himself" and apologized for losing his cool.

"I kind of reacted the way I did because I have a reluctance to talk about my experiences," adding, "I am always reluctant to talk about these things."

In the same article, McCain, betraying a textbook case of integrity-explosive emotional incontinence, advised Obama on how he should punish the egregiously inconsiderate Gen. Wesley Clark for refusing to believe that riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is qualification enough to be president-----"cut him loose." He underwent a lot of pain as a result of being shot down, albeit not of the torturous kind, and some people have the audacity to assume that that might not have primed him perfectly for the presidency?

Or was McCain "visibly angry" and "reluctant" simply because this memory was much too torturous despite its lacking a legally-certified classification of torture? Or, did he magnanimously not want to portray himself as exploiting his participation in The Domino Theory War for political advantage? Either way (all plausible explanations being true of course) would exemplify a mighty-fine, attractive, All-American candidate, and a very competent Leaderofthefreeworld (who, unlike most arugula-eating-geography-snob elitists, knows that Iraq borders Pakistan).

And yet, couldn't McCain very easily redeem his newly self-inflicted, fractured sense of honor? If only he could just re-flip-flop by immanently disregarding the veto support he gave The President to thwart Congress' latest attempt to bring the CIA in line with the Army Field Manual ("A rule book that prescribes mostly psychological methods of interrogation, and clearly prohibits the use of forced nudity, waterboarding, hooding and the use of military dogs")! The senator could then boldly reassert---- to himself----something he had already declared before nullifying it by later backing The Decider-In-Chief:

I would hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and Jack Bauer. Life is interrogation techniques which are humane and yet effective. And I just came back from visiting a prison in Iraq. The army general there said that techniques under the Army Field Manual are working and working effectively, and he didn’t think they need to do anything else. My friends, this is what America is all about.

Subtly, if not silently, reaffirming this statement could provide himself the retroactively moral honor of again being able to mention all the torture he suffered through in Vietnam, not "reluctantly," but loudly and proudly.

Still, if that didn't work he could also---somewhere in his soul---renounce his "nay" vote against the Intelligence Authorization Bill, which had it passed, would have outlawed waterboarding and "harsh interrogation tactics." Then McCain---in principle----wouldn't be unwittingly implying in deeds that he wasn't technically tortured, and thus could officially get down to the business of overtly reminding everyone that he was----in fact---barbarically tortured...

And alas, he already has, as his campaign shifts into high-integrity gear (see last 1/4 of the ad to see McCain after not being tortured by the Vietcong)!