I must confess that I am simply dying to hear what Dean David Broder has to say about this torture compromise. In yesterday's paper he was positively rhapsodic about his prized Republican moderates channeling Thomas Jefferson and standing up to President Bush's lawless presidency. He even managed to get in a few digs against the only people who've actually opposed this lawless chief exeecutive. So where does he come out now that his 'independence party' has conceded most of the points of contention, folded abjectly and basically given up?

(ed.note: I'm reserving some judgment on the ultimate questions here, because the legal terrain is one in which I need to defer to others with more expertise and because the language of the compromise, as far as I can see, has yet to be made public. But it looks pretty bad from everything I've seen so far.)