Right and wrong

Now that the U.S. House of Representatives has upheld President Bush's veto of a bill that would have barred the CIA from using the discredited invasive interrogation technique known as waterboarding, it would seem to be long past time for U.S. citizens to discuss how they see the future of their country. Is the United States determined to continue to decline, both morally and economically? Are U.S. residents resigned to the deposing of their country as the leader of the free world? The controversy over the U.S. government's use of interrogation techniques condemned by our allies and competitors as torture is really a debate about what the future is going to look like. The Bush White House has lowered the standing of the country in the world, and the Republican Party has signed on for the remainder of the descent. The 225-188 vote in the House, far from a two-thirds majority, was largely along party lines, with Republicans supporting the president's approach to world affairs. But this is an approach that has failure written all over it, as the Iraq war amply demonstrates, and the president must have lost his reading glasses.