It's not torture, it's assertive interrogation.

The administration and their embeds in the press support torture but deny that they do.  Recently I have noticed Tony Snow, Tucker Carlson and others repeatedly hitting that point.  The key is that they think we are so desensitized to the suffering of others that all they have to do is define torture very narrowly - absurdly narrowly.  That enables Scott McClellan to perform as shown here:  http://www.editorandpublisher.com/...

Below is my illustration of where we are headed.

Helen Thomas asks Scottie to clarify the ambiguity about torture.  Maybe the press conferences will come to this.

Q. Can you please give me a straight answer, is the United States asking for an exemption on torture?

A.  I have already answered that.  We do not torture.  The President would never condone that.  Thousands of people were murdered by terrorists on September 11, 2001.  We cannot let that happen again.

Q.  OK, Scottie, just tell me this,  given that the President and the Vice President would never condone torture, is it safe to say that they would never condone poking a red hot iron in someone's eye as part of an interrogation?

A.  Helen - I am offended by this line of questioning.

Q.  So, I take it as a yes that we would not seek an exemption for such a form of interrogation?

A.  Helen, of course not.

[ Guy in a suit comes up to Scottie and whispers in his ear. Scottie continues with a slightly altered approach.]

What I am saying, Helen, is that on September 11, 2001, three thousand innocent people were killed, and we would be remiss if we did not do everything in our power to prevent that from ever happening again, and the President and the Vice President would never condone torture under any circumstances.

Q.  So is that a no to hot poker in the eye?

A.  Helen, you are just absurd, you are not worth my time.  Next?

Q.  Scottie, I take it that it is no to the hot poker in the eye exemption, could you please confirm that?  And also what about dunking people underwater repeatedly, and what about hanging people from walls, would the President or Vice President be seeking exemptions for that?

A. David [Gregory], excuse me, I did not mean to call on you, I thought you were Mr. Gannon.

Later that night, on Tucker Carlson's show:

Tucker:  Well, the whole thing is ridiculous anyway.  Everybody knows that poking out somebody's eye with a redhot iron poker isn't TORTURE for goshsakes.  All the best information we have got we've got from the Saudis and you know that they use all kinds of means and we are in the real world here, and everyone agrees that torture is bad, but some aggressive interrogation techniques are of course necessary.