Haggling Over Price

There is an old story about an English gentleman who is having dinner with a woman and he asks her, "Madame, would you sleep with me for a thousand pounds?" She responds that, yes, she thinks she would. Then he asks, "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?" To this, she responds with outrage. "Sir, what do you think I am?"

"Madame, we have already established that. Now were are merely haggling over price."

When President Obama says, as he did in his news conference on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, that he is "absolutely convinced" that he made the right decision when he banned waterboarding, "[n]ot because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees ... but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are," Austin American-Statesman, Thursday, April 30, 2009 [emphasis added], he is just haggling over his price.

When the President is against torture, not because it is wrong, but because we could have gotten the information in other ways, we have established what he is. Now we are merely talking about his price.

It leaves hanging in the air, like a poisonous mist, this question: Mr. President, what if we couldn't get the information in other ways? Would you support torture then?

I believe the evidence is ovewhelming that torture does not yield reliable information. I believe that there are clearly quicker, more efficient, and more reliable ways to get information from an individual than to torture them. I believe that when we torture, it deprives us of the moral ability to protest when others do, and to protest when our soldiers and citizens are tortured by others. I believe that torture is a crime under both United States and international law.

But, everytime we let the discussion of torture turn on or even turn to any of those arguments, we have established what we are, and we are merely haggling over our price.

Torture is wrong. We shouldn't do it because it is wrong to do it. Our position is not based on practical considerations, like whether we can get the information some other way, or, at least, it shouldn't be. Our position must be based on this simple reality: Americans don't torture people because it is wrong. Otherwise, we're just haggling over our price. We are not better than anyone else in the world, we are just more expensive.

If global climate change is a fight for our very existence, the fight over torture is a fight for our very souls.

Unfortunately, this moral ambivalence is not new with Barack Obama. Like Patton said of Rommel in the movie, "I read your book!"

In President Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope," he discusses his opposition to the Iraq war. He mentions that he was asked to speak at an anti-war rally in October of 2002, and that there were those who advised him that doing so would not be a wise political choice. He admits that "... on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and-dried."

Why? Was it because he had not worked through the moral issues that surround and beset the idea of American pre-emptive war - the notion that those who profess to live in the "home of the brave" would attack someone who hadn't attacked them, because they were afraid?

No, it wasn't that at all. It was because he "sensed ... that the threat Saddam posed was not imminent ... ." So, Mr. President, if you'd been more convinced, if you had a different "sense" of how imminent the threat was, would you have reached a different conclusion about attacking someone who hadn't attacked us? Are we just haggling over your price?

I want to make it clear: I was an Obama supporter. I voted for him. That he is head and shoulders a better man, and better for America, than our last president could not be clearer. But, I am becoming more and more convinced that the difference is quantitative, not qualitative.

I raised this issue, over the very passage from his book that I've quoted, during the campaign. I asked other of my friends if they weren't concerned that he didn't take a more principled stand on the Iraq war, that his stand wasn't against the wrongness of it, but against the evidence for it. So, this is not new with me. I had just hoped that I was wrong, that I was misreading his message, his carefully chosen words when describing why he was opposed to the Iraq war. I still hope I'm wrong, but I am still waiting for something he does or says to prove me wrong, or at least not prove me right, over and over again.

In his book, "The Audacity of Hope," he discusses many different issues of the day, from economic positions to abortion to the war in Iraq to lots of other things. I've tried to read it carefully, and I think it is fair to say that, with every issue, his position is: Some people believe A. Others believe B. I happen to believe A, but I can see both sides, and there are good-hearted, honest, intelligent people on both sides.

I am still waiting for one issue, any issue, on which he says: I believe A, and there really aren't two sides to this issue. A is right, B is wrong, and those who believe B are just wrong.

I think pre-emptive war is such an issue. Apparently, he doesn't. I think torturing captives is such an issue. Apparently, he doesn't. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps I am so thick-headed that I just cannot see that those who think we ought to attack a nation that hasn't attacked us just might be right. Perhaps those who think we ought to torture our captives just might be right. Maybe those aren't the black and white, right versus wrong issues that I think they are.

But, surely, some issue is. There must be some issue where there just aren't two reasonable sides to the issue. Mr. President? Do you have any issues like that? Any?

Or is every issue merely one of practicality for you? We won't attack those who haven't attacked us, unless the justification is really, really good. We won't torture our captives, unless we really, really need to. We won't sleep with you for five pounds, but we will for a thousand pounds.

Are we really just trying to find out what your price is?