IT'S SUCH BAD POLITICS YOU HAVE TO ASSUME IT'S HEARTFELT:

Clinton backs off support for torture (Ben Smith, Sep 27, 2007, Politico)

Senator Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) ended her support for legalized torture at a debate in New Hampshire Wednesday night, splitting with her husband – and with her own recent stance on the charged issue.

"Senator Clinton, this is the number three man in Al Qaeda. We know there's a bomb about to go off, and we have three days, and we know this guy knows where it is. Should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation?" moderator Tim Russert of NBC asked during the debate held at Dartmouth College.

"As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period," Clinton responded, seconding the clear positions of Senators Barack Obama (Ill.)and Joe Biden (Del.).

But in a pair of interviews with the New York Daily News last October, Clinton outlined the same narrow exception that Russert described, and which had also been floated by former President Bill Clinton in an interview last year with National Public Radio.

Doesn't make political sense to diverge from the vast majority of the public, especially when national security is inevitably going to be her weak spot. And it's hard to make the moral argument when your husband--a former president--disagrees.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 27, 2007 8:35 AM