Gitmo -- again

Here is what John at Power Line has to say about the Gitmo situation:

By the way, there is a serious point to be made here. No one thinks that playing Christina Aguilera music, shaving a guy's beard off, and putting him in the same room with a woman are the most effective ways to extract information from a detainee. The reason why these unorthodox methods were used, obviously, is that the more effective, but less humane, techniques that have been used since time immemorial were banned by our civilian authorities, and the American military took seriously the restrictions under which they were operating. The mildness with which terrorist detainees have been treated stands as an imperishable monument to the greatness of the American spirit and the moderation of the Bush administration.

My sentiments exactly. Please contrast this historically knowledgeable, rational approach to a serious situation with the idiocies that the always-entertaining, never-intelligent Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont voiced:

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the committee, called the prison "an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals and remains a festering threat to our security."

I sincerely wish partisanship were not hampering American politics so severely, but how can you have rational discourse and compromise with people who speak in educated, irrational hyperbole?