On Wednesday, I was invited to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to defend the war on terror. The university is such a hotbed of liberalism, arguably the most PC university in the country (take that, University of Wisconsin!), that my police security detail included two armed bodyguards. Such is the confidence in free speech on campuses today.

A number of left-wing bloggers had attempted to foment an incident. They failed on that front. But they did fill the room with students not easily inclined to agree with conservative arguments.

In an attempt to make it a constructive evening, I tried to appeal to them on their terms, rather than my own.

Fortunately, the news provided ample ammunition. Earlier this week, we learned that congressional leadership, Republicans and Democrats alike, had been informed in 2002 that the CIA had harshly interrogated high-value al-Qaida operatives, using, among other methods, waterboarding. One of the Democrats in the room: Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker of the House.

This is, shall we say, intriguing, since Pelosi and her party have been until recently reaching new heights of sanctimony on the issue of torture and waterboarding.

There "was no objecting, no hand-wringing," an official who was there told the Washington Post. "The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.'" Not only did Pelosi not offer a peep of protest, the Washington Post reports that at least two lawmakers (out of only a few present) pressed the administration about whether the methods were "tough enough" to get the job done.

Either Pelosi asked the question herself, or she sat quietly while one of her colleagues inquired whether the screws were being turned tightly enough.

Either way, her defenders say we need to look at the context. This was just after 9/11, and Pelosi was as angry about the attack and as eager to prevent another one as anyone.

Time magazine's liberal columnist Joe Klein writes: "There was fear that we would be attacked again by terrorists, and on a regular basis. Few were thinking clearly about the nature of the threat and how to deal with it." So, what's the big deal? Continued...