Tell Us What You Know Or You're Toast. Freedom Toast

Americans have always thought of themselves as the good guys. We are the ones who play by the rules, well most of the time anyway. So when we get in a scuffle with the bad guys, we don't beat them by being meaner, more cruel or more viscous. We beat them by being smarter than they are.

OK, with the current administration in Washington burrowed into fantasy like a tick on a dog's back, we've pretty much lost the smart edge and it looks like our fall back position is to try to out evil the evil doers.

GOP voices are lining up to defend Guantanamo, a facility that one human-rights group has called a "gulag." Vice President Cheney said war-on-terror detainees would continue to be held at there, even as the White House said all options for prison's future were on the table.

But it's all right when we do it as Representative . Duncan Hunter explains. The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee displayed Guantanamo-like prison entrees of lemon-baked fish and oven-fried chicken with rice, fruit and vegetables, "purchased for them by American taxpayers" to illustrate conditions at the prison. "They've never eaten better." Hunter said.

So. After a hard day of thinking you are being drowned because of a wet towel or dripping water being used to induce suffocation, or being threatened them with dogs, or having guards smear you with fake menstrual blood you get a nice meal. Maybe spaghetti tonight.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said the prison was "housing terrorists bent on killing Americans and destroying freedom" and "it should remain in place until it is no longer needed to help keep our four star chefs fully employed."

"We need to look and see whether any of the allegations being levied are real," said Representative Curt Weldon. When told that videotape of abuse existed, he replied, "Well, I was thinking of the allegations that they're being fed well. I want to know if freedom fries are on the menu."

Ok, so if we can't be smarter than the bad guys, at least the torture is getting us some information. Or maybe not. Well, at least it's getting us some convictions of terrorists. Or maybe not

When asked why he was in favor of keeping the base open when the information obtained was suspect, there were no convictions of prisoners forthcoming and the whole issue had turned into a recruitment tool for islamic fundamentalists, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said, "Hey. This strategy has worked for the Israelis and Palestinians for the last sixty years. It ought to be good enough for us"