Today in the Washington Post, Richard E. Mezo, who served in the Navy for six years, describes his experience being waterboarded:

Last week, much to my dismay, government officials testified before Congress that the United States has used the interrogation technique known as waterboarding and would like to hold out the option of using it in the future. As someone who has experienced waterboarding, albeit in a controlled setting, I know that the act is indeed torture. I was waterboarded during my training to become a Navy flight crew member. [...]

Waterboarding has, unfortunately, become a household word. Back then, we didn’t call it waterboarding — we called it “water torture.” We recognized it as something the United States would never do, whatever the provocation. … Waterboarding is torture, and torture is clearly a crime against humanity.

Former Justice Department official Daniel Levin, who was voluntarily waterboarded in 2004, came to similar conclusions about the procedure.

In January, the U.S. economy lost nearly 17,000 jobs, “the first time in nearly 4-1/2 years that U.S. payrolls shrank.” The report of January’s losses came just after President Bush triumphantly declared in his State of the Union that “America has added jobs for a record 52 straight months.”

Today, on Fox News Sunday, President Bush was asked about the shape of the economy and said that his “experts” are suggesting that the U.S. is not in a recession:

WALLACE: Mr. President, what are the chances that we’re either in a recession or headed for one?

BUSH: I think the experts will tell you we’re not in a recession, and they will tell you that there’s a lot of uncertainty. And therefore, the question is what do you do about it.

While Bush’s advisers may give him rosy assessments, Americans are feeling the effects of the economic slowdown. According to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll, “sixty-one percent of the public believes the economy is now suffering through its first recession since 2001.”

A recent ABC poll reached similar conclusions. Sixty percent “think the economy’s already in a recession” while “two-thirds doubt that a government stimulus package will soften the blow.” In total, 81 percent said the economy is “in bad shape, the most since 1993.”

And many “experts” agree. According to a recent survey of economists by USA Today, more and more economists are predicting a recession:

Even Bush’s Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is privately saying that the economic situation is much worse than the Bush administration is stating publicly.

The New York Times reports:

With Mr. McCain facing resistance from conservatives, Mr. Bush has also emerged as the man Republicans, including the McCain camp, are counting on to unite the party. One McCain adviser, Charlie Black, called Mr. Bush “a political asset” in an interview last week. Another, speaking anonymously to discuss strategy, said Mr. Bush needed to “put his arms around John McCain,” by figuratively linking himself with the senator in public comments.

Josh Patashnik did a smart article on how Virginia may not be as favorable to Obama as the press seems to think. But then there’s the matter of the Virginia polling which shows a big lead for Obama. It’s not been a heavily polled state, so I’m not sure how much confidence you should have in the accuracy of those surveys, but they certainly seem to show that Virginians (other than my aunt Lisa) like Obama.

John McCain reels in a pathetic 26 percent in Washington, loses Kansas, and loses Louisiana. It’s not going to stop him from winning the nomination, but obviously conservatives haven’t quite reconciled themselves to the Straight Talk Era. Conservatives not feeling the McMentum is, I believem going to be one of my topics on Fox News today at 12:50 PM. Be there (and as long as I’m self-promoting, buy the book).

In an interview with Fox News, President Bush argued that if his agenda and record are made central issues in the upcoming presidential election, then the Republican nominee stands “a better chance of winning” because the election won’t be about him:

My attitude is, so long as they’re talking about me, we have a better chance of winning because our candidate will — what’s going to matter is not the past but the future when it comes to campaigns.

If the Democrat Party feels like they can win an election by focusing on me, I think they’d be making a huge tactical mistake. But I hope they do that then because our candidate will be able to talk about the future.

Watch it:

Elections are about the future, and Americans are eagerly anticipating the end of the Bush era. But, Bush will play a central role in the upcoming presidential contest because the leading conservative candidates are espousing a “third Bush term” as their policy agenda.

Bush essentially conceded this morning that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will best carry on his agenda. “I know [McCain] well. I know his convictions,” Bush said. “I know the principles that drive him. And no doubt in my mind he’s a true conservative.” He added:

I think that if John’s the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative. And I’ll be glad to help him if he’s the nominee. Look, he’s very strong on national defense. He’s tough fiscally. He believes that tax cuts ought to be permanent. He’s pro-life. I mean, he’s a — his principles are sound and solid as far as I’m concerned.

In Jan. 2007, Newsweek conducted a poll asking Americans if “they wish the Bush presidency [were] simply over.” Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they did, including 59 percent of independents and 21 percent of Republicans.

In a speech to Missouri Republicans yesterday, former attorney general John Ashcroft defended President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and his record on civil liberties, declaring that Bush is “among the most respectful of all leaders ever” when it comes to “respecting the civil liberties and rights of individuals.” Bush “respects liberty so profoundly that he has protected it and has safeguarded civil liberties more than any other president in wartime that I know of,” Ashcroft said. Ashcroft’s comments come on the heels of Bush’s decision to allow the civil liberties oversight board to go vacant.

Chris Bowers is outraged by the prospect of superdelegates determining the winner of the Democratic primary. Kevin Drum is blasé. I’ll take a middle ground view — I think Chris is right to think it’d be a pretty bitter pill to swallow if that’s how things shake out, but the controlling principle here is that “the rules are the rules.” The superdelegates business, which seems to favor Clinton, is just the flipside of things like the Michigan/Florida exclusion or the weird rules that let Obama win Nevada even while Clinton had many more votes — there’s a lot of oddness in the nominating system and there’s no point of plucking out any particular feature and slamming it as unfair as the process unfolds.

Conversely, this stuff gets tweaked every cycle. The Democrats have had this dumb superdelegate thing in there for a couple of decades now with people mostly not focusing on it because it never comes into play. Well, now it might come into play and it doesn’t sit well with people. They ought to ditch the rule going forward.