One of the ironies of the interrogation debate is that opponents of coercive interrogation refused during the debate over the McCain Amendment last year to pony up and specify which techniques should be banned and which shouldn’t. They resorted to this evasion for two reasons. One was that they were counting on the new Army Field Manual to do their work for them, effectively banning all techniques harsher than speaking sharply to a detainee. The other was that they didn’t want to be up-front about all the techniques they wanted to ban, from shaking to playing loud music, because they knew their absolutism on this issue wouldn’t play well with the public. I posted again and again during the debate over the McCain Amendment urging that we have a debate over specific methods. We didn’t, but this ended up helping to save coercive methods because the vague language created some openings. This isn’t the way I would have wanted to see it play out (a forthright debate would have been better), but part of me enjoys seeing the evasion of the other side back-fire on this one. Also, it turns out that John McCain didn’t really–despite what both his allies and opponents thought–oppose all coercive interrogations, so when push came to shove this year, he was willing to work with the White House to save the CIA program. Again, not an ideal process, but I’m glad for the result.