New Values Debate Over Prisoner Abuse Could Hurt Bush - WSJ's Harwood

[question everything]

June 23, 2004

CAPITAL JOURNAL
By JOHN HARWOOD


WASHINGTON -- With Reagan nostalgia in the air and Bill Clinton on TV screens, you can't blame some conservatives for dreaming of yesteryear's political debate over values. George W. Bush wouldn't have become president without it. But it's a brief reverie, because America won't repeat the values debate of campaign 2000. The ongoing scandal over prisoner abuse is creating a new values debate -- threatening one of Mr. Bush's bedrock strengths.

Prisoner abuse has proven toxic for Mr. Bush in many ways: deepening pessimism over the occupation of Iraq, heightening doubts about the administration's competence in the antiterror war and damping attitudes toward the resurging economy. It also has begun eroding Mr. Bush's standing on values.

As the nation mourned Ronald Reagan's passing this month, Mr. Bush held a news conference in the wake of a report in The Wall Street Journal that administration lawyers had drafted a legal justification for torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. Three times, journalists gave the president chances to condemn the use of torture, distancing himself and the nation unequivocally from such practices. He didn't. Mr. Bush responded on legal, rather than moral, grounds that, "The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law."

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"We should never allow lawyers to define public policy when a question of values is at issue," Mr. Gingrich says. "If you're an American, you believe that every human being you deal with is endowed with inalienable rights. It's a key element of who we are as a people."

(snip)

Consider this week's new Washington Post/ABC News poll. Americans split on which candidate "shares your values" -- 48% chose Mr. Kerry, 46% Mr. Bush. Among independents, Mr. Kerry's advantage was 17 percentage points. In an earlier Post/ABC survey, asked whether torture is ever acceptable, 63% said no, 35% yes.

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Write to John Harwood at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108793722920044410,00.html

[Trajan]

1. THIS part is huge ...

"Among independents, Mr. Kerry's advantage was 17 percentage points. In an earlier Post/ABC survey, asked whether torture is ever acceptable, 63% said no, 35% yes."

THIS election battle will be fought on the paper-thin boundaries between the rockhard partisans; the 5 % at the margins inhabited by neer-do-well's, jaded rogue party irregulars, ...

and: ... independents !!! ...

Hip Hip HOORAY for those extremely intelligent independents ! ...