KEY POINTS:
The strange thing about the news is that it only gives you a quick snapshot of an event. That's its job. What it rarely offers is a bigger perspective over time.
On a quiet Saturday recently, George W. Bush took his pen and vetoed one measly bill that
summarised eight entire years of where he has taken America - and I almost didn't notice that day.
You probably skimmed over it, too. It didn't seem like anything new. The President had decided to reject a bill by the United States Congress that would have reined in his Administration's use of torture.
It seems he refused to ban stripping detainees or forcing them to mimic sexual acts. He refused to ban the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, when prisoners have their mouth forced open, and water is poured into their lungs through a cloth over their face while being strapped down.
"This is no time to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," he told Americans in a radio address.
It was like listening to the cartoon character Mr Magoo lecture on getting your eyes checked.
Democrats jumped up and down warning that George W. Bush would go down in history as the Torture President if he dared to veto this bill.
But Bush didn't care. Or maybe he cared too much. He cared enough to believe that torture and security work hand in hand. He has never seen it any other way. For him, it's never been possible that his "special procedures" could actually further jeopardise security of the US throughout the world.
"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," he said, "So today I vetoed it."
Never underestimate a man and his tools, even when he can't manage to call a spade a spade. Bush has famously declared with conviction, "We do not torture".
Like the abrupt shutter click of history marking its moment, the 43rd President has secured his legacy.
And what a legacy. Torture wins. Presidential powers are maintained - for now. The CIA can do what it wants in the name of US freedom, and I am safer?
George W. Bush's War on Terror has been about as comforting as the lick of a warm puppy - only the world has never been sure whether he's ever had his shots.
We're so busy watching the excitement of a new presidential horse race, everybody has taken their eyes off what nasty business is still going on in the stalls.
Even the US military has banned these practices. The FBI isn't interested in them either. The CIA banned waterboarding in 2006, but still the Bush Administration refuses to rule out letting them use it in the future. Who are they talking to?
Certainly not to the former director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, Retired Army Lieutenant General Harry E. Soyster. He told the Washington Post that people who endorse harsh methods don't know what they're talking about.
"If they think these methods work, they're woefully misinformed. Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogations. And it damages our credibility around the world," he said.
I almost laughed out loud at the irony of hearing the commander at Guantanamo, Navy Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby, tell reporters last week in defence of current "rapport-building" tactics, "We get so much dependable information from just sitting down and having a conversation and treating them like human beings in a businesslike manner".
This is from military men.
Somewhere in this disconnect between military efficacy and Bush's reality is a nation on which "freedom has stubbed its toe", as poet Langston Hughes would say.
For a President who didn't use his veto once in his entire first term, a rarity not seen since James Garfield, he has taken up his pen eight times in the past 10 months, like a fighter in his final bloody round. No man wants to see eight years of solidifying presidential power - the real hallmark of his rule - crushed by an 11th hour Democratically controlled Congress determined to restore that precious balance.
In 2001, I watched fighter jets patrolling the empty skies of Portland, Oregon, from my back garden on the day the Twin Towers fell. I never dreamed that seven years later this same President would not have a clue how tragically he has squandered America's moral authority throughout the world.
Of all things, George W. Bush has been consistent. This was just one bill. No one noticed much, except for the millions who now live with the tragic consequences of his intransigent short-sightedness - a vision that history will call blindness.
* www.traceybarnett.co.nz
