End around

This is what George Bush meant back in December when he declared in an Oval Office photo-op that he was accepting Sen. John McCain's call for a law banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.

The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

The decision could culminate a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the Defense Department officials acknowledged.

The detainee directive was due to be released in late April along with the Army Field Manual on interrogation. But objections from several senators on other Field Manual issues forced a delay. The senators objected to provisions allowing harsher interrogation techniques for those considered unlawful combatants, such as suspected terrorists, as opposed to traditional prisoners of war.

The lawmakers say that differing standards of treatment allowed by the Field Manual would violate a broadly supported anti-torture measure advanced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain last year pushed Congress to ban torture and cruel treatment and to establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for treatment of all detainees. Despite administration opposition, the measure passed and became law.

For decades, it had been the official policy of the U.S. military to follow the minimum standards for treating all detainees as laid out in the Geneva Convention. But, in 2002, Bush suspended portions of the Geneva Convention for captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Bush's order superseded military policy at the time, touching off a wide debate over U.S. obligations under the Geneva accord, a debate that intensified after reports of detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

So it's just another in an ever-growing list of instances of the Bush administration ignoring laws it doesn't feel like obeying.

During his campaign for president, John McCain will certainly tout his high-profile opposition to the Bush administration's policy of torturing prisoners and his resistance to administration pressure to back off the anti-torture amendment.

But what is less clear is what he will do in response to this end-around by the administration. Is he really interested in guaranteeing humane treatment for prisoners, or was the whole amendment and show of resolve in the face of administration pressure just fodder for his '08 presidential run?

If McCain does nothing about this obvious effort to render his amendment meaningless, we'll know it was all for show.

You want to be leader of the free world, senator? Then show some leadership. The ball's in your court.