I agree wholeheartedly that Rove probably doesn’t care a bit what actually emerges as compromise language on the definition of acceptable “alternative measures” of interrogation, or the procedural ground rules for future military trial tribunals. What Bush and Rove REALLY want (and eventually will probably get, in bipartisan fine print) is the retroactive immunity from criminal prosecution and civil rights civil liability, with a narrowing of judicial review, that is insidiously tucked away in the proposed legislation.

In that sense, it’s not “purely political.” Like the parallel demagoguery over the NSA domestic spying legislation, don’t be suprized to find John McCain and Arlen Spector both holding hands with George Bush in the Rose Garden on the eve of the floor votes, magnanimously congratulating themselves on the virtues of bi-partisan compromise.

Once again, a good number of Dems will be suckered into voting for the final version in the naive belief that this will protect them from being swift boated anyway. Why anybody inside the beltway brain trust of the Democratic Party thinks it is clever electoral strategy to let Republican moderates take the lead on torture (or NSA wiretapping of Americans) is something this Midwesterner cannot fathom. If the Dems political problem is that the public sees they have no program of their own for fighting terrorism, why reinforce that perception in independent voters’ minds by meekly holding John McCain’s coat for him?

Regardless of how it plays out politically, keep your eyes on the fine print. What the White House really wants and needs is the immunity for wrongs and crimes already committed – a fig leaf of Congressional support for the unitary executive branch/wartime Commander-in-Chief legal powers mumbo jumbo that they can shovel into the federal courts for the next couple of years.

Give them that, and they can get away with murder.