Can Bush & Co. manage to get any more off message as they have in the past several days? Is this some kind of new Rovian tactic to confuse the hell out of the voting public in an effort to somehow win them over? Perhaps playing the feel-sorry-for-us card?

First they attempt to claim they've never endorsed "stay the course" as the operative phrase when it came to Iraq, only to justifiably be pummeled by the MSM and internet with numerous examples of the phrase being uttered by Bush, Cheney and other administration officials, repeatedly for years.

And now we have Cheney admitting that "water boarding" is a "no-brainer" -- this despite Bush reassuring us that the U.S. does not permit torture.

Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said, "If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American's head under water until he nearly drowns, if that's what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives."

This possibility is a central danger in the recently passed torture act. Apart from it being unconstitutional, the act puts our soldiers or any American captured abroad at risk. Why should other countries abide by international agreements or accords concerning torture if we do not?