Allah:
I realize we’re throwing a lot of these interrogation polls at you lately but I find them fascinating as a long-running rebuke to elite opinion. Liberals in Congress and their friends in the press have spent the better part of 10 years pressing the point that enhanced interrogation, most notably in the practice of waterboarding, is not merely wrong but un-American.
Americans disagree. And not just the Americans you’d expect to disagree.
Note well: Even a few people who think EIT is unjustified think it helped produce intel that thwarted attacks. The core argument of EIT opponents, from the Senate Democrats who released last week’s report on down to rank-and-file lefties, is that torture never — never — works. Fifty-six percent believe not only that it does work but that it already has.
Among the groups that side with the majority: Republicans, of course — and women, Hispanics, and young adults, all mainstays of the Democratic coalition.
The last two rows are the most interesting. At this point, with the torture debate having been litigated and relitigated for years on end, you’d expect the only people still tuning in to be dedicated opponents of enhanced interrogation. Not so. People who are paying close attention to the news about Senate Democrats’ report on the CIA are considerably more likely to say post-9/11 interrogation is justified than people who aren’t.
How do you spin that if you’re on the other side of the issue and invested in the idea that Americans can’t support an idea you’ve deemed the epitome of un-Americanness?
