Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The contest, after all, is between a president who has repeatedly broken faith with the American people over the war in Iraq -- everything from weapons of mass destruction to disingenuous assurances that torture has not been used in the interrogation of suspects -- and a former Vietnam War prisoner who was tortured by his jailers because, among other things, he refused an offer of early release. There is nothing in George Bush's life that even approaches what McCain has done.

Of course, McCain does not stand alone against Bush. He was joined on the Senate Armed Services Committee by three other Republicans: Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and, importantly, the chairman, John W. Warner. They were in turn joined by the Democrats, who, for once, have wisely stepped out of the way to allow the Republicans to duke it out among themselves. But it is McCain who gets the lion's share of attention, and it was McCain who elicited that letter from Colin Powell saying, among other things, that under Bush's proposals to amend the Geneva Conventions, the world would "doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." The lion had finally roared.

American politics reached a critical turn last week. The revolt of several Republican senators against President Bush's insistence on a free hand in treating terrorist detainees signaled the emergence of an independent force in elections and government.

This movement is not new, but the moral scale of the issue -- torture -- and the implications for both constitutional and international law give it an epic dimension, even if it is ultimately settled by compromise.

The senators involved -- John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner -- were also instrumental in forming the "Gang of 14," the bipartisan bloc that seized control of the Senate last year and wrote the compromise that prevented a drastic change in the filibuster rule that otherwise would have triggered a bitter partisan divide.

These are not ordinary men. McCain, from Arizona, is probably the leading candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination. Graham, from South Carolina, is the star among the younger Republican senators. Warner, from Virginia, embodies the essence of traditional Reagan conservatism: patriotism, support for the military, civility.

They were joined in their opposition to Bush's call for extraordinary interrogation techniques by Colin Powell, the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is still, despite the controversies over his role in Iraq policy, one of the most admired Americans.

Now, however, you can see the independence party forming -- on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society -- the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left and the doctrinaire religious extremists on the right who would convert their faith into a whipping post for their opponents.