Good post Chris M.

Completely agreed.

However you're using a few too many shoulds and should nots for my liking! Of course, the American people will judge Bush's administration partly on its failure to adequately address the prison abuse issue (which because of its historical precedence and indivisible links to some part of human nature may be impossible to adequately address) and even maybe choose Kerry partly because of their perception of what he may do or may have done... which though not logical, is fine by me, cos I don't like Bush!

There is still relevance to Bush's performance in how he handles this. The baseline (which although harsh is black and white) is the military judicial procedure, training protocols and framework for redress of complaints. If he orders/initiates a review of this whole procedure he will be deemed (unfairly) as being too late; and anything else will be (unfairly) dismissed as not being enough. I say unfairly, but are human emotion and expectation factors which should be left out of decision-making altogether? That would be another unhealthy ideal.