Making Torture Legal

Anthony Lewis, in the current issue of The New York Review of Books:

Reading through the memoranda written by Bush administration lawyers on how prisoners of the 'war on terror' can be treated is a strange experience. The memos read like the advice of a mob lawyer to a mafia don on how to skirt the law and stay out of prison. Avoiding prosecution is literally a theme of the memoranda. Americans who put physical pressure on captives can escape punishment if they can show that they did not have an 'intent' to cause 'severe physical or mental pain or suffering.' And 'a defendant could negate a showing of specific intent...by showing that he had acted in good faith that his conduct would not amount to the acts prohibited by the statute.'

What astonishes me, no, what scares the hell out of me, is that W is still even in the polls with Kerrey. What does it take?