[NOTE: “Talkshow with Spike Feresten,” in all its silly, joyfully tasteless glory premieres tonight at midnight on Fox. Enjoy, kids! Now:]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trying to stare down a revolt from fellow Republicans, President George W. Bush warned on Friday that time was running out for Congress to save a crucial CIA interrogation program for suspected terrorists.

…A day after a Senate committee rejected his pleas and endorsed legislation that would protect the rights of terrorism suspects, Bush argued strongly for his proposals.

…The Washington Post wrote in an editorial on Friday that Bush was basically lobbying for torture and that the CIA wants permission to interrogate detainees “with abusive practices that in the past have included induced hypothermia and ‘waterboarding,’ or simulated drowning.”

The legislation Bush rejects is backed by a trio of powerful Republican senators with military links — John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — as well Colin Powell, Bush’s first secretary of state and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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“Congress has got a decision to make. You want the program to go forward or not? I strongly recommend that this program go forward in order for us to be able to protect America,” Bush told a White House Rose Garden news conference.

The point, in case you missed it, is that the President is trying to protect America, and everyone else just wants to see us going spinning down the ol’ toilet. John McCain? Wussy appeasement monkey. Colin Powell? He even looks a little like an Arab if you squint your eyes and imagine him in those white Saudi robes. Democrats? Are they even officially American anymore?

Nope. The only guy who’s really got your back is the President. And there are only two minor rules that he needs to change. The first, as you know, is the Geneva Convention, particularly that poorly conceived “Common Article 3″ and its use of vague, artsy-fartsy words like “outrages upon personal dignity” and “humiliating and degrading treatment.” Think about it - if those terms aren’t redefined, it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to humiliate and degrade our prisoners in order to get ‘em to talk. Not for much longer, anyway.

What McCain and his ilk are missing is that the consequences of redefining that rule can be eliminated by changing one other regulation: The so-called “golden rule.” You know, that “do unto others as you would have them do to you” hippie bullshit that’s been jammed down our throats by the liberal media elite? I don’t know where it originated, but I’d guess it was during the 60’s when everyone was smoking reefer and building the welfare state and real Americans were suddenly no longer entitled to the front of the bus… you know, those times. At least, that’s where this so-called “golden rule” seems to have its hemp-scented roots.

And it has to go, obviously. We can’t allow the enemy treat their prisoners the way that we want to treat ours. Nobody in this country would stand for it, and any politician who said that repeatedly almost-drowning Jimmy from Springfield and then inducing hypothermia so that he’s a quaking, vomiting, sobbing mess and then doing it again and again and again until he “talks” - well, any politician who said that we had to allow THAT simply because we were doing that to our prisoners… that politician would be lucky to survive to be brutally defeated on the next election day.

So the so-called “golden rule” has to go.

You might have noticed that I have referred to said rule only as the “so-called golden rule.” And I didn’t capitalize the “G” or the “R.” This was on purpose! Just like the Death Tax, the very name of the so-called “golden rule” needs to be called into question. It sounds too valuable and established. I propose that we go one step further and henceforth start referring to it as the “Traitor Coward Pussy Rule.” Imagine how that will sound on the talk shows! And all we have to do is use it regularly, and someday soon we’ll see this exchange on “Meet the Press:”

“Senator, how can you say you want to protect America when your record shows that you’ve consistently voted on the side of the Traitor Coward Pussy Rule?”

“Well, first of all I want to point out that I’ve always called that the Gold-”

“We can quibble over names all day. But you don’t deny that you’ve voted on the side of what I call the Traitor Coward Pussy Rule, do you?”

“Umm… technically, no, but -”

Game over.

Now… as for what we can replace the Traitor Coward Pussy Rule with. Some sort of rule-of-thumb morality that reflects these dangerous times. Something malleable and forgiving and above all security-minded. I think I have it. I give you… the Tin Rule:

“Do unto others as you hope they never get the chance to do unto you.”

You can thank me later. We’ve got work to do.