The Daily 202: Why John McCain is voting against Gina Haspel to lead the CIA – and why it matters
Why John McCain is voting against Gina Haspel to lead the CIA – and why it matters John McCain, seen here in a Hanoi hospital as a prisoner of war, was shot down over Vietnam during a bombing mission on Oct. 26, 1967. (AP) BY JAMES HOHMANN with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve THE BIG IDEA: What’s legal and what’s moral are different. “Right and wrong” are subjective. Not everyone’s “moral compass” points them to the same true north. Gina Haspel, President Trump’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, repeatedly declined to say during her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday whether “enhanced” interrogation techniques were immoral. The controversial methods, which have subsequently been outlawed, were used against terrorism suspects during the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Haspel oversaw a secret CIA prison in Thailand. This is why John McCain, who suffered mightily at the hands of his Vietnamese captors during five-and-...