Noonan's Locution

Check this out:

The question for the Obama administration: Do they think Mr. Cheney is essentially correct, that bad men are coming with evil and deadly intent, but that America can afford to, must for moral reasons, change its stance regarding interrogation and detention of terrorists? Or, deep down, do the president and those around him think Mr. Cheney is wrong, that people who make such warnings are hyping the threat for political purposes? And, therefore, that interrogation techniques, etc., can of course be relaxed?

If you read those sentences as written, they seem so banal as to be meaningless. The change on detention is to restore due process and end the practice of throwing disappeared suspects into black sites indefinitely. And what does "stance regarding interrogation" or "relaxing" interrogation techniques mean? No one is suggesting that interrogation be relaxed. What we're demanding is that illegal torture be ended so that actual interrogation can resume. It's amazing the lengths some will go not to use the word torture. If Bush's chief prosecutor at Gitmo can call it what it is, why cannot Noonan?