Shred of Decency

The Wall Street Journal's politics blog notes one key absentee from this morning's ceremony at the White House where George Bush signed the bill that repeals habeas corpus rights for terrorism suspects and introduces a category of "non-grave" violations of the Geneva Conventions --

Bush went out of his way to thank Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two-thirds of the trio of Republican mavericks who initially refused to support the bill and changed their position only after forcing the White House to make modest changes to the legislation. But the president didn’t mention the leader of the trio, Arizona Republican John McCain, who was notably absent from the White House ceremony.

McCain, as one would expect, merely cited other engagements as the reason for not showing up. And he did, after all, vote for the bill. But since the White House signing was carefully scheduled weeks in advance, it could easily have accommodated McCain's schedule had he wanted to show up. It looks like McCain is smart enough to be preparing a "I wasn't there when it happened" defence for a law that history will not look upon kindly.

UPDATE: A careful reading of Tony Snow's press briefing today suggests one reason for McCain's annoyance; it sounds like the White House does not intend to comply with the law's requirement that the menu of non-grave breaches and associated punishments be published. Snow specifically stated that the law "authorizes" the President to do this, implying that it is not required.