In the days running up to the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's so-called torture report, members of the Bush administration rallied around the CIA, defending their long-held claims that the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" saved lives. (Anything to the contrary was "all a bunch of hooey," former Vice President Dick Cheney told The New York Times.)
But current GOP office-holders are split on the issue. At least one potential 2016 contender said the report, which details numerous instances of gruesome abuse, is "one-sided."
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was tortured during his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, took a different stance, declaring on the Senate floor that Americans were "entitled" to the truth about a CIA program that "stained our national honor."
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"Did they make us safer?" he added. "Or did they make no difference?"
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