We don't need no stinking Geneva Convention

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, and I rarely agree on anything* — a fact that likely isn't causing either of us any lost sleep — but I was glad to hear him say on Face the Nation this morning that President Bush's attempt to backdoor the Geneva Convention in the name of his War on Terror (which is really a War on Bad Stuff Being Written About George W. Bush in History Textbooks, but that's another post) is a morally bankrupt idea.

Actually, morally bankrupt was mine. I think Lindsey just said it was bad.

Graham did, however, make the correct and cogent argument that if the United States fancies itself the world's moral leader, we only fuel the fire of our enemies by playing the hypocrite on the "secret trials" (read that: "secret torture") issue. As the Senator put it, if an American citizen was convicted by a foreign power based upon evidence that was withheld from the accused and/or his legal counsel, we as a nation would be up in arms. Therefore, we can't be seen engaging in that kind of treatment of the citizens of other countries.

Were I a member of the White House press corps, I'd pin the President to the wall on this matter with a single question, plus a follow-up:

Mr. President, without making public any of the specific details of your secret trial plan, would you simply tell us whether the plan involves American agents doing anything to detainees that we would not wish to have done to our own personnel if captured?

Assuming His Nibs answered the question in the affirmative — hey, I like to give a guy the benefit of the doubt — my follow-up would be:

Mr. President, knowing that you consider yourself a Christian, how would you reconcile that answer with the words of Jesus: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?

Even though the President apparently considers himself exempt from the Geneva Convention, I'd hope he isn't so far gone that he considers himself exempt from the Golden Rule.

*Actually, I believe both Graham and I root for Air Force in collegiate football. But that's about it.