by TChris

The Senate, defying the White House, overwhelmingly passed Sen. John McCain’s bill to prohibit the abuse of detainees. That language is not in the House version of the military spending package to which it was attached in the Senate, so House and Senate conferees will need to decide whether to include it in the version that goes to the president. Vice President Cheney’s effort to persuade McCain to soften the bill’s language went nowhere.

House Democrats planned to introduce a motion that would instruct House conferees to adopt McCain’s language. They’ve been stymied by Speaker Dennis Hastert’s refusal to appoint the conferees. Now why would Hastert be dragging his feet?

Democrats on Thursday were quick to accuse Mr. Hastert, a close friend and political ally of Mr. Cheney, of taking steps to postpone a vote that would embarrass the vice president at a time when his former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., is under indictment in the C.I.A. leak case. "At a time when we should be protecting American service men and women from torture and improving our sullied international reputation, the majority in the House is more interested in protecting the vice president and this administration from embarrassment," said Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, a California Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.