"It shows that we have a philosophical difference here," said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The vice president believes in certain circumstances the government can't be bound by the language McCain is pushing. I believe that out of bounds of that language, we do harm to the U.S. image. It doesn't mean he's bad or I'm good; it just means we see it differently."
This is the kind of talk that would evoke charges of relativism against a liberal. 'Relativism' is one of the vaguest and most misunderstood terms we have; what Graham says here is not genuinely relativistic, but, again, if a liberal said it that's how it'd be construed.
Also note:
"The debate in the world has become about whether the U.S. complies with its legal obligations. We need to regain the moral high ground," said one senior administration official familiar with internal deliberations on the issue, adding that Rice believes current policy is "hurting the president's agenda and her agenda."
It's a terrible day when we have to resort to the language of self-interest to convince a vice-president that the U.S. should meet its moral and legal obligations. But that's the main failing of Cheney: at heart, he's a foreign policy "realist". Which means, in essence, that he does not believe that our country has any moral obligations to other countries or to their citizens. The only question we are allowed to ask in formulating policy is "what's in it for us?"
This is not the America I grew up believing in.