Earlier today, Eric Holder called waterboarding out-and-out torture. But later, when asked about other kinds of interrogation techniques (dogs, painful stress positions, nudity, and mock executions), he said he wouldn’t call those actions torture.

Instead, he refreshingly reminds the committee that Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions requires that the detainees be treated in a “humane fashion” and that these techniques, nevertheless, would certainly violate that.

To say that this perspective, and candor, is appreciated by the senators might be an understatement.