Tortured mindsets

Is waterboarding torture? Herman Cain: "I don't see it as torture. I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique." Rick Perry: "This is war. That's what happens in war. And I am for using the techniques." Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and, yes, even Mitt Romney also nodded their approval. The Spanish Inquisitors of old, the Gestapo, the Khmer Rouge, and the Apartheid-era South African Police would lustily applaud these Republicans -- just like the debate audience did. However, Sen. John McCain, who experienced torture firsthand as a POW in North Vietnam, begged to differ: "Waterboarding is torture." Period. "Very disappointed by statements at SC (South Carolina) GOP (Republican) debate supporting waterboarding," McCain tweeted. I'm glad he spoke out. Somebody on the GOP team needed to. Edmund Burke said all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Blithely casting off morality, as these candidates have evidently done, is the first step. None of these people belong in the White House.