To Republican Chris Shays, Abu Ghraib was just a liberal sex ring.

So sex to them doesn't involve consenting adults? It's all about humilation and power?

Wolcott passes judgement.

Via Atrios, Digby:
"What in the hell is wrong with these people? That's not torture? That stuff is over and above the things we've all seen with the forced masturbation, simulated fellatio, smearing feces on prisoners and forcing them to wear women's underwear while chained in stress positions to their cells or beds.

Characterizing what happened at Abu Ghraib as a "sex ring" is bizarre enough but he defends his comment the next day which means it wasn't a slip of the tongue or a badly worded phrase. He's thought about this and he believes it.

He said he looked at all those pictures and saw sex. Did you? I sure didn't. But then we libertine lefties base our belief that people should be able to do whatever they like in their private lives on the bedrock principle of individual freedom, agency and rights. It's the coercion that makes all this stuff so wrong. When somebody is coerced or forced into doing "sexual" things against their will, it can most certainly be torture. (I can't believe I even have to make that argument.)"

Chris Shays tries to explain and makes it worse.