But he did say one thing that set him apart from most of the rest of the panderers in the GOP race for the presidential nomination:
"I started work when I was 14 and I had to pay my own way through, and I know how hard it was to get that degree. I'm standing here tonight on this stage because I got an education. If I hadn't had the education, I wouldn't be standing on this stage. I might be picking lettuce. I might be a person who needed government support rather than who was giving so much money in taxes I want to get rid of the tax code that we've got and make it really different. In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country than that."
McCain said something similar: "These are God's children as well and they need some protections under the law and they need some of our love and compassion."
Guiliani and Romney, on the other hand, competed to see who could be the nastiest and the most black-hearted of all, both on the issue of immigration and of torture.
This exchange is illuminating:
SEN. MCCAIN: Well, Governor, I'm astonished that you haven't found out what waterboarding is.
MR. ROMNEY: I know what waterboarding is, Senator.
SEN. MCCAIN: Then I am astonished that you would think such a torture would be inflicted on anyone in our -- who we are -- held captive, and anyone who could believe that that's not torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Conventions. (Applause.) It's in violation of existing law.
And Governor, let me tell you, if we're going to get the high ground in this world and we're going to be America that we have cherished and loved for more than 200 years, we're not going to torture people. We're not going to do what Pol Pot did. We're not going Pot do what's being done to Burmese monks as we speak.
And I suggest that you talk to retired military officers and active duty military officers like Colin Powell and others. And how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me. (Cheers, applause.)
MR. COOPER: Governor Romney, 30 seconds to respond, please.
MR. ROMNEY: Senator McCain, I appreciate your strong response, and you have the credentials upon which to make that response. I did not say, and I do not say, that we're in -- that I'm in favor of torture. I am not. I'm not going to specify the specific means of what is and what is not torture so that the people that we capture will know what things we're able to do and what things we're not able to do.
And I get that -- and I get that advice from Cofer Black, who is a person who was responsible for counterterrorism in the CIA for some 35 years. I'd get that advice by talking to former general in our military, and I don't believe --
MR. COOPER: Time.
MR. ROMNEY: -- I don't believe it's appropriate for me as a presidential candidate to lay out all of the issues one by one --
MR. COOPER: Time.
MR. ROMNEY: -- get question one by one, is this torture, is that torture.
MR. COOPER: Senator McCain?
MR. ROMNEY: That's something which I'm going to take your and other people's counsel on.
MR. COOPER: Senator McCain, 30 seconds to respond.
SEN. MCCAIN: Well, then you would have to advocate that we withdraw from the Geneva Conventions, which were for the treatment of people who are held prisoner, whether they be illegal combatants or regular prisoners of war, because it's clearly the definition of torture. It's in violation of laws we have passed.
And again, I would hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and Jack Bauer. Life is interrogation techniques which are humane and yet effective. And I just came back from visiting a prison in Iraq. The army general there said that the techniques under the Army Field Manual are working and working effectively, and he didn't think they need to do anything else.
My friends, this is what America is all about. This is a defining issue, and clearly, we should be able if we want to be commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces to take a definite and positive position on, and that is we will never allow torture to take place in the United States of America -- (off mike) -- (cheers, applause.)
(By the way, Cofer Black is a rather evil fucker who was working for Blackwater before he signed onto the "Willard M. Romney for Fuhrer" campaign."
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