Those who know torture

Oh, dear John McCain, sweet Senator from Arizona, how the Rude Pundit feels for you. You remember every night, don't you, Senator McCain, the pain and humiliation dealt to you at the hands of the Vietcong. God, what they did to you, in those years as a POW, held in bamboo cages. How they hurt you, Senator McCain, broke your teeth, broke your bones. How tight were the ropes that bound your arms, twisting them, contorting your muscles. "Torture ropes," as you called them, are meant to make control of a prisoner simple - just a brief pull and the verge of pain upon which you've been living becomes the precipice of pain that you feel. How they beat you, Senator McCain, viciously, on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day, demanding that you say you're a criminal, a terrorist, if you will.

They fucked you up - they re-broke bones that had healed, they jumped on injuries, they starved you, and they made you stand for days on end. And they questioned you, over and over and over. They say solitary confinement is an unending nightmare, and you were not only alone - your ventilation and light had been cut off, and the hell of your loneliness was compounded by the wet heat of the peninsula. You know, Senator McCain, you alone in that Senate chamber know what is what when it comes to torture. And you also know that the moment will come when even the hardest men will break and gladly confess lies about themselves. After nearly killing yourself because of the constant pain, you signed a confession. You wrote, "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate," words you knew were ludicrous at best and baseless lies at bottom. But you signed, you signed, you just wanted the fucking pain to end and who, really, could blame you but cowards and liars themselves.

Yes, yes, we know that you were a real soldier of a nation's military, a real prisoner of a real war so that the breaking of the Geneva Convention was more clear-cut. But, in the end, what happened to you meets the boundaries of legal torture laid out in the memo that Alberto Gonzales requested: you were never brought to organ failure or, indeed, death.

[...]

Vote yes on Gonzales, Senator McCain, and no one should give a shit about your story and your pain ever again.

  Rude Pundit post February 2, 2005

And how did John McCain vote?

Oh, and, by the way, John McCain, you gimpy motherfucker? Don't you ever try to take the moral high ground on anything, ever again. Not only did you stay stone silent on Gonzales, but you sucked it up like a good little butt boy and voted for the torture master.
  Rude Pundit post February 4, 2005