The United States of Depravity?

In this March 3, 2005, file photo, a workman slides a dustmop over the floor at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

There must be a sad dearth of compassion among many of our fellow citizens these days. In response to the CIA torture report describing the "enhanced interrogation techniques," a euphemism for the extremes of cruelty inflicted on detainees, polls show a majority of Americans "just shrugged." And as one commenter to the article cited below observed: "All this poll proves is 54% of America have decided to change the name of America to the United States of Depravity."

Aaron Blake reports at the Washington Post:

A new poll from the Pew Research Center is the first to gauge reactions to last week's big CIA report on "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- what agency critics call torture.

And the reaction is pretty muted.

The poll shows people says 51-29 percent than the CIA's methods were justified and 56-28 percent that the information gleaned helped prevent terror attacks.

The word "torture," it should be noted, isn't mentioned in the poll, but it has been associated with much of the coverage of the issue. And the numbers align nicely with polls on the use of torture, which shows that relatively few Americans are concerned about it -- especially when you bring the prospect of combating terrorism into the mix.

Read more: