Incidentally, reader response to that Nov. 2001 column I wrote on torture was

overwhelmingly pro-torture. Several dozen readers e-mailed in to berate me

for wimping out in the WoT.

I remain opposed to torture, as I understand the term, and as I believe the

common understanding of the term has been in Anglo-Saxon democracies this

past 100 years or so. On the evidence of my mail-bag, though, millions of

Americans are much less fastidious. I wonder what on earth *they* make of

the Gonzalez hearings.