A few pithy quotes from James Taranto on the left's latest political dogfight du jour.

Quoting Ryan Sagar:

There's an important debate to be had in this country about just how far we're willing to go in our interrogations. But it's a difficult debate to even get started when one side thinks that we should be extremely concerned with the possibility that someone, somewhere might have desecrated the Korans of the people responsible for the murders of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, three-thousand Americans and now hundreds upon hundreds of Iraqi civilians.

I wouldn't put it quite that way -- that Koran is shared with a number of people who don't approve of such things -- but the larger point is valid: I think everyone can agree it's wrong to "torture" people -- but to avoid it, we'll need to ask: "Well, what exactly is torture?" Yet the Bush administration got into trouble for asking just that question -- critics could only presume that the administration must have been trying to legally defined torture in order to do it. But how can we even have this debate if we can't even get to the starting block? The entire debate is being utterly pre-empted by vapid polemics.

If only the critics making the complaints would give some positive guidance: What do you want to have happen? Do you want Gitmo shut down and the prisoners released? Do you want them transferred to their native lands where they would be undoubtedly treated much worse? (Or would you then duplicitiously turn around and claim we were "oursourcing" torture?) Or do you demand all suspected terrorists are treated exactly as if they were US citizens?

And what of the details? Should there be exact specifications of allowable room temperatures? Is there a minimal sleepbed number setting for mattress firmness? Is repeatedly playing "It's a Small World After All" a form of torture? What about Metallica? Or William Shatner? What if our own soldiers -- or private citizens, nevermind -- are found living in the same conditions? What then?

We're all open to suggestions here. Let's have the courage state our convictions, okay? (Of course, experience tells me I'm not going to get what I'm asking for. I'm past the point of really believing such people care in the slightest about solving the problems they profess to believe are important today.)

And this was amusing, too:

A Rasmussen poll out yesterday suggests that this is terrible politics. Only 20% of the 1,000 likely voters in the survey "believe prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been treated unfairly." ....

Even among Democrats, only 30% think the Guantanamo prisoners are being treated unfairly. In other words, many Democratic elected officials are out of touch not only with Americans in general but with a majority of their own supporters.

This from a group of leaders who is fond of criticizing judges as being "out of the mainstream" for believing the US Constitution has some kind of intrinsic meaning.

What I completely don't understand yet is why everyday, rank-and-file Democrats -- many of whom view themselves as responsible, nice people -- keep supporting these extremist leaders, so out of touch with the mainstream. I can only assume that for some, hatred of Bush overwhelms any semblance of rational thought or concern for innocent lives.