Bush agrees to McCain's torture ban

Humanity 1, Bush 0.

It's yet another White House flip-flop, but at least it's hypocrisy in the right direction. From the Post:

The White House and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reached agreement today on a measure that would ban torture and limit interrogation tactics in U.S. detention facilities, a provision that the Bush administration had strongly resisted but that received broad support in Congress.

The agreement, announced after President Bush met with McCain and Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) in the White House, came a day after the House overwhelmingly approved language supported by McCain that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in the custody of the U.S. government. The Senate approved the provision by a lopsided margin earlier.

My last post on torture (with links to previous posts) is here.

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Around the blogosphere:

Andrew Sullivan: "[T]his is a huge step forward for the president, the war and American honor. It also has, I think, implications for McCain's possible succession to Bush as president."

The Carpetbagger Report: "The events that led the White House to reverse course on this will no doubt be fleshed out in the coming hours and days, but it seems safe to assume that when the House easily passed a non-binding resolution in support of McCain's amendment last night, 308 to 122, and in the process ignored the administration's demands, Bush's congressional liaisons knew the writing was on the wall."

But don't get too excited: Body and Soul exposes a potentially serious problem. So does Think Progress. And The Heretik.

The White House probably did see the writing on the wall and obviously needed to do something to align itself with public and Congressional opinion (not to mention humanity). And, on the surface, this looks good. I've long been a supporter of McCain on this issue. As I put it yesterday, "there ought to be a firm and absolute ban against [torture]". This White House flip-flop -- and McCain's victory over his opponents throughout the Republican Party -- moves America closer to such a ban.

But don't yet take Bush at his word. He and his pro-torture cronies, led by Cheney, are likely looking for whatever loophole they can find.