A Defining Moment for Congress

But on the Senate side, the leading dissenters on detainee policy are Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).

"In the House, the Judiciary Committee was forced to scrap a planned drafting of a warrantless surveillance bill, in part because nearly half a dozen Republican conservatives were in open rebellion against GOP leaders' efforts to weaken controls on the eavesdropping program."

Eric Lichtblau and Kate Zernike write in the New York Times: "The White House political strategy in the past week has been twofold: first, putting Mr. Bush in the public spotlight with a string of national security speeches, and now, trying to put Democrats in a box by forcing them to take a stand and vote on Mr. Bush's authority to run two of his most controversial antiterror programs.

"But Senators Warner, McCain and Graham appeared to be providing cover for the Democrats, allowing them to stay on the sidelines while the three senators, respected Republicans with distinguished military records, take on the White House. . . .

"Dan Bartlett, a senior aide to Mr. Bush, said the dispute with the Senate Republicans 'may require us to go our different ways for now and try to come back in conference.'"

Margaret Talev and James Rosen write for McClatchy Newspapers: "At an afternoon news conference with Warner and McCain, Graham denounced the White House version in no uncertain terms.

"'This whole thing has been just one mess after another,' he said. 'It started with Abu Ghraib. How many more times do we need to create legislation that's defective, that's going to confuse people, that's got not a snowball's chance in hell of passing Supreme Court muster?' said Graham, a military lawyer."

In a letter sent to the Armed Services Committee Thursday, 27 retired military leaders urged Congress to reject the White House proposal to reinterpret the definition of Common Article 3.

"If any agency of the U.S. government is excused from compliance with these standards, or if we seek to redefine what Common Article 3 requires, we should not imagine that our enemies will take notice of the technical distinctions when they hold U.S. prisoners captive. If degradation, humiliation, physical and mental brutalization of prisoners is decriminalized or considered permissible under a restrictive interpretation of Common Article 3, we will forfeit all credible objections should such barbaric practices be inflicted upon American prisoners."

Laurie Kellman writes for the Associated Press that former secretary of state Colin Powell also came out against the White House plan today: "'The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,' said Powell, who served under Bush and is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 'To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.'"

Opinion Watch

A Washington Post editorial argues that the Senate confronts a fateful choice: "Will it send President Bush, as he demands, legislation that would authorize the CIA to engage in interrogation tactics the world understands as torture, rewrite America's obligations under the Geneva Conventions and authorize trials whose fairness many people at home and abroad will question? Or will the Senate approve a bill that ensures justice for foreign detainees and ends the CIA's secret detentions and harsh interrogations?"

Bob Herbert writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "There was a time, I thought, when there was general agreement among Americans that torture was beyond the pale. But when people are frightened enough, nothing is beyond the pale. And we're in an era in which the highest leaders in the land stoke -- rather than attempt to allay -- the fears of ordinary citizens. Islamic terrorists are equated with Nazi Germany. We're told that we're in a clash of civilizations. ...