Senate committee approves torture

Ok, the New York Times has a different headline - Senate Panel Questions CIA Detentions - but that's the message I get:

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday questioned the continuing value of the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program for terrorism suspects, suggesting that international condemnation and the obstacles it has created to criminal prosecution may outweigh its worth in gathering information...

But the committee stopped short of using its budget authority to shut down the program. In a closed session on May 23, two Democrats, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dianne Feinstein of California, proposed barring spending on interrogation techniques that go beyond the Army Field Manual, which bans physical pressure or pain. Under their proposal, the only exception would have been when the president determined “that an individual has information about a specific and imminent threat.”

The amendment failed when Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, joined all the Republicans in voting no.

Note that the amendment would have allowed Jack Bauer to threaten to gauge out the eyes of terrorist suspects when he thinks they have information about a nuclear weapon set to go off in Los Angeles. But it would have forced the CIA to behave in a civilized manner otherwise.

I knew Republicans were all for torture. Apparently Sen. Bill Nelson does too.