Somehow you sort of knew this was coming. On Wednesday, despite all the suggestions that it had put waterboarding off limits, the Bush administration again defended this interrogation method in which a subject is strapped down and has water poured over his cloth-covered face.

This form of torture -- and yes, it's considered torture by many -- creates a sensation of drowning. The administration says that it still regards waterboarding as a legitimate practice if authorized by the president, even though it has been banned by the CIA and the Pentagon. The White House also admits that it was used on three terrorism suspects.

There is a moral reason -- torture is wrong, particularly for a nation that has stood by the Geneva Conventions and has always stood for treating captured enemies humanely -- and a practical one for not using waterboarding.

As Sen. John McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war who was himself tortured, has said: torturing suspects makes it likely they'll tell interrogators whatever they want to hear, whether the information is accurate or not. And it would increase the likelihood that Americans who might be captured by enemies will also be subjected to torture.

Waterboarding's history is not illustrious. It goes back to the infamous Spanish Inquisition. It is barbaric. It is not something with which a civilized nation should want to be associated. And McCain says he will outlaw it, should he become president.

The right thing to do would be for the White House simply to abolish the technique, no exceptions, end of story. The exceptions contemplated apparently have to do with gaining information about an imminent attack -- perhaps an understandable impulse, but still opening the way to unnecessary and counterproductive abuses. Unfortunately this president just can't bring himself to compromise. So again, he has to send out his posse to defend the indefensible.