Cheney v. McCain for the Soul of the Republican Party?

Here's Andrew Sullivan today on the impasse between the Vice President and Senators McCain/Graham/Warner, which I discuss below:

It's going to be a battle of wills—between decent conservatism and the lawless, government-knows-best policies of Cheney and Bush. . . .

It beggars belief that, after Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Gitmo and the dozens of deaths in interrogation that the administration wouldn't want some way out of its own impasse. But no: as so often, it sticks its heels in, and refuses to acknowledge an obvious and terrible mistake in the war. I look forward to the hard right describing McCain as a leftist or unpatriotic because he wants to restore America's reputation as a country that acts ferociously but always humanely in its own defense.