New Smacks from Newsmax

Can the right wing sink lower than this?

In its effort to convince Americans to embrace the traditional value of torture, this popular right-wing publication is reduced to saying "hey, it worked when the Viet Cong beat up John McCain!" Oh, how proud Newsmax must be of those clever Viet Cong. They were ahead of their time with the torturing and the beating.

The article is an attempt to refute McCain's oft-repeated position that inhumane techniques are "not only brutal - they simply don't work to persuade terrorist suspects to give accurate information." In an effort to show that torture actually does get accurate information, Newsmax relates the following tale told by McCain:

"For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards . . . Finally, I reached the lowest point of my 5 1/2 years in North Vietnam. I was at the point of suicide, because I saw that I was reaching the end of my rope."

McCain was taken to an interrogation room and ordered to sign a document confessing to war crimes. "I signed it," he recalled. "It was in their language, and spoke about black crimes, and other generalities."

They've buried the lede! The real story here, apparently, is that John McCain was a war criminal! He committed black crimes! The Viet Cong, by using the valuable tools of torture, finally got this accurate information from him!