Deal or No Deal

No, it's a deal. Personally, I think as good a one as you could want given the circumstances:

The White House and dissenting GOP senators settled a disagreement Thursday on a bill setting out procedures for interrogating terror suspects and trying them in front of military tribunals.

The deal, reached after three days of intense intra-party negotiations, satisfied the concerns of three Republicans on how the measure would affect U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions.

While the agreement does not redefine the Geneva Conventions, as the White House originally proposed, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said it would provide enough "clarity" to allow the CIA's interrogation program to go forward.

More than anything, seeing that all the right people are ticked off about it leaves me feeling good about the Senate compromise:

-Are we Cool with Cruel and Degrading Treatment for US Troops?

The only problem is that whatever we agree is acceptable interrogation tactics, we obviously have to accept can also be done to our troops when they are captured. It's one thing when we tell other countries to treat our soldiers by the Geneva Conventions when we are following them, it's another to say that when we are not. As Colin Powell tried to explain, we would have lost our moral standing.

This is the point when conservatives start screaming about how terrorists cut people's heads off. Yes, congratulations, you win -- you are slightly better than Al Qaeda. Maybe that should be the slogan of the Republicans supporting the White House position on "tougher interrogations" -- Republicans: Slightly Better than the Terrorists.

And Democrats, clueless as ever.

-THE DETAINEE DEAL: THE ACLU DOESN'T LIKE IT

Following announcements that an agreement has been reached between the White House and Senators John Warner (R-VA), John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on military commissions, the American Civil Liberties Union today said the compromise agreement does not protect due process, fails to meet international treaty obligations and urged lawmakers to reject the deal.

Is this supposed to bother me? Just about anything the ACLU is for, too much of the time I end up landing on the other side.

-Take up your Rubber Stamp

The "very important program of interrogation" that they have agreed to preserve is torture. Torture is at the heart of this program and is what the administration has been fighting for since the Supreme Court handed down Hamdan. What's more, Frist's statement makes clear that the Uniform Code of Militart Justice, which guarantees that defendants have the right to see the evidence against them, is going to be gutted in this "compromise."

That's no compromise, all you "principled" GOP rebels. It's capitulation. Lay down your much vaunted "integrity" and take up your Rubber Stamps.

Inside folks say no, and your caricatures of the President take a beating when you look at some of the details involved in this compromise.

-Sell Out!

Yes, McCain sells out the country and Democrats look like crap.

Shame on me for allowing myself to get a tiny bit optimistic just for a moment.

Have you ever seen so much righteous indignation!? Not in a long time.

Meanwhile, in answer to the charges of selling out and rubber stamping I'd offer an 'inside' account via Byron York at The Corner:

"I think there is every reason for both sides to be happy," he said. The key part of the deal seems to be that Congress has defined "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. "We recognized that the president has the authority to interpret treaties," the source said, "but Congress now has the authority to define 'grave breaches.'" Those are what might be called the Big Nine: torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, performing biological experiments, murder, mutilation or maiming, rape, causing serious bodily injury, and sexual assault or abuse, and taking hostages. According to the source, the proposed legislation has a section defining some of the less clear categories; there was a lot of negotiation, as you might expect, over the meaning of "cruel or inhuman" treatment.

The source stressed that "grave breaches" of Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions have long been a crime in U.S. law. "We've enumerated what a 'grave breach' is," the source said, "but Jesse Helms and Jim Inhofe made 'grave breaches' of Article Three a war crime back in 1997."

The source said the McCain/Graham/Warner camp realized that the White House had a point when it raised the possibility that "a liberal jurist would say that a female interrogator of a Muslim male is a 'grave breach.'" So after outlining the Big Nine, the negotiators recognized the authority of the president, in the words of the agreed-to draft, "to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions."

"'Grave breaches' are crimes," the source said. "Non-grave breaches are something else. We are going to spell out grave breaches, and then it is up to the administration to come up with sanctions for violations that are less than 'grave breaches.'

"One key aspect of the deal is that it calls for the president to use an executive order to issue his interpretations of what would be non-grave breaches of the treaty, and then --this is the important part-- to publish the executive order in the Federal Register. "That means it is subject to public scrutiny," the source said. I asked whether the White House resisted on the issue of publishing the executive order, and the source said, "No, not at all."

I think the Senate rightly understood the need for the President's retention of authority in defining 'grave breaches,' and likewise the President was wise to allow for some transparency here. That certainly should put a sock in some of the criticism about the 'most super-secret Administration in history,'.

Though judging by some of the early returns, perhaps not.