From Washington Post
By David S. Broder

American politics reached a critical turn last week. The revolt of several Republican senators against President Bush’s insistence on a free hand in treating terrorist detainees signaled the emergence of an independent force in elections and government.

This movement is not new, but the moral scale of the issue — torture — and the implications for both constitutional and international law give it an epic dimension, even if it is ultimately settled by compromise.

The senators involved — John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner — were also instrumental in forming the “Gang of 14,” the bipartisan bloc that seized control of the Senate last year and wrote the compromise that prevented a drastic change in the filibuster rule that otherwise would have triggered a bitter partisan divide.

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