So has a ticking time bomb ever been defused as a result of Bush Administration torture policies?

Writing today on the “Return of the 9/11 President,” Dan Froomkin notes that the President is still making the argument that torture has saved lives:

Then, however, Bush made an unsupported claim, and issued a challenge that the media and his critics should pick up with vigor: “The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack. And for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them, which attack would they rather have not permitted — stopped? Which attack on America did they — would they have said, well, you know, maybe it wasn’t all that important that we stop those attacks.”

But if the American people have “got to know” that torture gained information that prevented an attack, Bush needs to start making a better case. As I’ve written repeatedly, he has yet to offer any evidence that intelligence produced by torture thwarted a single plot or saved a single life.

The media should demand that he back it up or take it back.

Whatever you might think of the ticking time bomb rationale (the combination of its dubious moral and legal justifications combined with its real-world rarity lends it little weight for me personally), but you’d think that at some point its adherents would have to put up or shut up.

Hearing that we might be up late getting a winner in the Virginia race on the GOP side.

McCain: “Anyone who worries about how long we’re in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war.”

Thanks to ThinkProgress for the catch.

The Democratic-controlled Senate just passed the surveillance bill, 68-29.

As we have mentioned through the day and covered extensively at TPMmuckraker, most of the civil-liberties-friendly amendments to the bill failed. Retroactive immunity for telecoms survived.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), among others, is not a happy camper.

All the nets call Virginia for Obama; GOP side too close to call.

The exit polls look a little ambiguous. One set of exit poll numbers I’ve seen has it by Huckabee by two points. One the other hand, the demographics released by CNN look a little better for McCain. One way or another, a very, very close race between Huckabee and McCain in Virginia.

You can see our live election results down the right in the news section. But if Virginia is any indication, Barack Obama is in line for a very strong showing tonight. Virginia was Hillary Clinton’s best chance tonight and Obama seems to be dominating there.

It also seems like we may be seeing another example of synergy between the two races in Virginia. Independents and Republicans seem to have participated pretty heavily in the Democratic primary, and they went overwhelmingly for Obama. (The reverse happened in New Hampshire.) Those were voters McCain needed in the Republican primary. And without them, or without a lot of them who voted on the Democratic side, he’s in a very tight race with Huckabee.

A key detail from the exit polls. According to CNN, 40% of the Virginia primary electorate was made up of self-identified evangelicals. And they’re breaking 3 to 1 for Huckabee.

CNN’s John King was just doing a run-down of the vote in Virginia. Short version seems to be that a lot of the votes that are in already come from the strong Huckabee areas; and McCain’s strongholds in Northern Virginia are mainly still to report. So that bodes well for McCain.

Also. Special point of pride update. Our results out of Virginia are significantly ahead of those CNN is reporting on the air. So if you really want to be up-to-date, well … you know, stay right here.

We’re hearing on the cable shows that Obama won the Latino vote in Virginia 55%-45%. And clearly Obama is having a very good night. But we shouldn’t necessarily read that much in to those numbers because Latinos were only 5% of the Democratic primary electorate. So the sample size is just too small to be reliable. So maybe Obama kicked butt among Latinos. But we can’t know that from these numbers.

TPM Reader JEM points out that with McCain now slightly ahead of Huckabee with 54% of precincts reporting, you have to figure it’s time for the head of the Virginia GOP to call this baby for McCain.