I’ve found that it’s often particularly useful, when trying to grasp a strange political dynamic, to build a visual model of the situation. So, as it has become apparent over the last few days that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush intend to continue their campaign against the Senate’s legislation to ban torture, I decided to make a map of their pro-torture allies in the United States Senate. Just who, I wondered, voted with Bush and Cheney, and voted against the torture ban? Here’s the map I made of where these torture loving senators are from:
It’s a pretty shocking concentration of pro-torture sentiment, isn’t it? Except for lonely Alaska, all the Senate’s promoters of torture are from the South Central United States. I’m calling this area the Republic of Torture, which is a shameful thing to depict a region as, but then again, the voters in these states actually voted for the politicians who are now defending Bush’s power to torture prisoners whenever he wants to.
The following are those pro-torture senators. If you’re from one of the states colored red in this graphic, and you’re pissed off that I’m saying that you’re living in the Republic of Torture, well, keep in mind that I’m just the messenger. If you want out of the Republic of Torture, you can move, or you can vote your pro-torture senator out of office.
Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado
Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri
Senator Thomas Coburn of Oklahoma
Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi
Senator John Cornyn of Texas
Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma
Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama
Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska
