[politics] I guess it all depends upon what the word "torture" means

Bush: We do not torture. Period.

Cheney: Uhhh... Not so fast.

TORTURE. There's only one meaning of the word, and we either do it or we don't. So now, repeat after me: Torture is un-American unacceptable. Period. How is that difficult to understand? And these were the fuckers complaining about Clinton's parsing of "is"? [Updated to reflect the fact that simply decrying torture as 'un-American' was indulging in cheap, unseemly, ingrained nationalism. Torture is unacceptable, by any country, culture, or creed. I don't care what you're fighting for - the use of torture tarnishes whatever ideals you claim to hold dear. It is a clear abuse of power by the state, which does not engage in torture to extract information: it indulges in torture to validate forgone conclusions and to terrorize those who would stand against it. Do we need to use smaller words? Louder voices?]