This weekend’s Gazeta Wyborcza has a story headlined “Bush agrees to the Geneva Convention.” How good of him to agree to something his legislature signed into law half a century ago. Who would have thought the day would come when the agreement of the US not to torture prisoners would be news? The US! The country to whose values others less fortunate and more oppressed have, perhaps naively, traditionally aspired. The headline is interesting in that it makes it look like Bush made the concession. The subhead reads: “America will firmly forbid the most brutal methods of questioning prisoners suspected of terrorism used up until now and will abide by the Geneva Convention.” Another word for someone (prisoner or not) suspected of terrorism is “innocent person.” The irony continues: the article describes the three Republicans who refused to support Bush’s bill allowing “podtapianie” as rebels (I guess “podtapianie” is the Polish for waterboarding: if you are ever in Vilnius you can visit the place where communists practised their variety of waterboarding on “terrorist suspects”). And finally, some criticism of the “rebels”: “Voters will remember how divided the Republicans are. We’re going to lose out over this.” This quote comes from an unnamed Republican advisor – unnamed, presumably, because of the depths of cynicism and amorality it shows.