What is the approach on torture?
One of the first things that - the hurdles that you have to approach is that - how do you define torture? Because torture is a word that is loaded and different people define it different ways. The real question is - Republicans tend to define torture more narrowly than democrats, especially Europeans do. Ask a question about waterboarding...Republicans are less willing to put a prohibition on waterboarding because it doesn't cause any lasting physical damage - that sort of thing, or usually doesn't cause lasting physical damage - that whole sort of thing. Things like humiliation or sleep deprivation, is that torture? Republicans are less willing to say that's torture. They call it agressive tactics or whatever, but they don't define torture in that same sense. Whereas Democrats are more willing to define torture broadly. We put this along parties but I think the parties are less of a way to define this then between conservatives - idealogical conservatives - and idealogical liberals or progressives. Liberals are more willing to define torture broadly and are more willing to just prescribe waterboarding beforehand - before they know what the situation it is or where the nuclear bomb is or whatever other those mythical situations that 24 brings up all the time. It's not solidified on either side. John McCain for instance is willing to prescribe waterboarding. Joe Lieberman is a little bit less hard stance on waterboarding so there's fluidity between them.
