Commentary: McCain's Position on Torture Could Alienate Base

June 17, 2008— -- The following is a commentary by ABC News' Sam Donaldson. Click here to view a video version of Sam's latest essay

Let's talk about torture — the real kind, not just the daily back-and-forth in this long political campaign.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing about where the idea originated for U.S. agencies — principally the CIA and interrogators at the detention center at Guantanamo, then later at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq — to use techniques that many Americans consider torture: waterboarding, slapping, treating a person like an animal, sensory deprivation and the like.

Of course, not all Americans think using those techniques is torture… Or, if it is, is wrong. But enough do so that Congress passed a law against using them and President Bush signed it… Although he made clear he didn't necessarily think he had to obey.

So, the Armed Services Committee asks, where did the idea to do these things originate? Until now, the story has been that interrogators at lower levels asked for them, said they needed them in order to get information necessary for the defense of the country and the Defense Department, Secretary Rumsfeld at the top, agreed to allow them after much soul-searching.

Now, however, documents and witnesses are coming forward to say that, in fact, it was senior members of the Defense establishment and elsewhere in the Bush Administration who compiled a list of such techniques and encouraged their use…

Well, that was "yesterday"… but it may have repercussions in today's presidential election.

The American voting groups that consider these techniques wrong almost always generally favor Sen. Barack Obama for president. But according to polls earlier this year, almost half of all Americans say these techniques can often or sometimes be justified. And these voting groups generally favor Sen. John McCain.

But here is a wildcard — while Sen. Obama agrees with his base on this matter, Sen. McCain does not agree with his — he was the author of the Anti-Torture Law that the president signed. Just another example of how Obama melds perfectly with his supporters while McCain does not.