Maverick McCain rankles conservatives

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. John McCain's standoff with the White House over treatment of detainees — an issue the former POW knows intimately well — threatens to worsen his already contentious relationship with conservatives.

"Maverick status is looked upon as a strength in Congress, but a maverick in the White House is not looked upon with great admiration from our folks," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Monday.

"Politically, this isn't wise," added the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, which supports the president's call for Congress to approve tough interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects.

McCain, with his eye on a 2008 presidential bid, had taken steps to improve his relationship with conservatives, addressing a graduation class at Liberty University this year at the invitation of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a former adversary.

The Arizona senator has been a staunch supporter of President Bush on the Iraq war. McCain has alienated conservatives, however, for opposing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and supporting federal expansion of embryonic stem-cell research.

Social conservatives also have taken issue with his effort to overhaul the immigration system, in part, by granting millions of illegal immigrants a path to eventual citizenship, and his work with a rogue group of senators to avert a Senate fight over Bush's judicial nominations.

The warnings from conservatives over the detainee issue illustrate the risk McCain faces in taking on the White House: alienating a base of support he would need to win the Republican presidential nomination.

But McCain shrugged off suggestions that the dust-up could hurt him politically, saying last week that his "credibility with the American people is that I do what I think is right."

Advisers also brush off the notion of long-term political consequences.

"At the end of the day, he's going to do what he thinks is right, and when he does that, it works out politically," said John Weaver, a senior political adviser. When McCain doesn't hold true to that, it usually "blows up in our face," Weaver said.

McCain could benefit by showing voters he stands alone and inoculating himself from future efforts to link him to the legacy of Bush, whose support in public-opinion polls hovers in the low 40 percent range.

McCain's latest tussle with the White House is over the president's insistence that Congress allow the CIA to use aggressive methods against terrorism suspects.

McCain and a growing group of Senate Republicans contend the United States must adhere strictly to the a section of the Geneva Conventions, which set international standards for the treatment of wartime prisoners. Known as Common Article 3, the section bans "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

Bush says this language is vague, leaving intelligence agents in doubt about whether some of the harsher interrogation tactics they have employed to obtain vital information are legal. He has asked Congress to clarify the language. But McCain and his allies say Congress should not unilaterally set a definition, or else other nations with less respect for human rights may do the same — to the detriment of U.S. personnel in captivity.

Bush wants Congress to quickly pass his proposed legislation authorizing military tribunals for detainees and harsh interrogations of terror suspects. Last week, he singled out McCain, making clear whom he blamed for standing in the way.

On Tuesday, the White House and a group of Senate Republicans continued to seek a compromise on interrogation legislation. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist signaled he and other White House allies would filibuster the McCain bill if it wasn't rewritten.

Bush also faced problems in the House, where GOP moderates Christopher Shays, R-Conn., Michael Castle, R-Del., Jim Leach, R-Iowa, and James Walsh, R-N.Y., publicly threw their support behind the bill opposed by the White House. The four Republicans told Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, that any House bill must maintain the dissidents' principles.

A year ago, McCain led a high-profile charge in Congress to clarify a law against torture by extending it to also ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners. The White House issued a veto threat.

But McCain, a former Navy pilot tortured during nearly six years of imprisonment in Vietnam, attracted enough House and Senate support to override a veto. After a very public spat, the White House and McCain reached an agreement that essentially resulted in the senator getting what he wanted. Bush signed the bill in December.

McCain since has resisted engaging in a public battle over how the administration has implemented the law. That changed last week.

Sixteen months from presidential-primary season, some Republicans believe McCain's latest haggling with the White House won't have lasting negative implications.

"In the long term, no one can hold a candle to McCain on national-security issues," said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist.

Material from the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post is included in this report.