Democrats have damaged our ability to stop the next terrorist attack
Heather McDonald in Opinion Journal:
Senate Democrats decided to turn the confirmation hearings of Alberto Gonzales into a referendum on the war on terror--specifically, on the Bush administration's decision that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda terrorists. They implied that the denial of prisoner-of-war status to al Qaeda fighters resulted in the torture of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
This "torture narrative" is gospel truth among elite opinion-makers, yet it is false in every detail. It relies on ignorance of the actual interrogation techniques promulgated after 9/11. However spurious, the narrative has had a devastating effect on interrogators' ability to get intelligence from detainees.
Torture the detainees? We can't even stress them.