PAUL RIECKHOFF: There was another critical vote today in the senate or a critical vote today in the senate today. I just came from over there, ah, where the senate tried to extend the army’s interrogations standards across the board; to the CIA, to the FBI. It was a very close vote. I think it passed with 51 votes.

RACHEL MADDOW: Yeah.

RIECKHOFF: But John McCain voted against it. And I think that’s a critical vote. If he is against torture and I was hoping we were going to have two candidates who were against torture across the board, this was a vote that may come back to hunt him; this is a really troubling vote. I mean, I’ve been talking with some veterans in the last couple of hours and I can’t tell you how disappointed they were to see that McCain voted in this direction. It’s probably going to be vetoed by the President but I think this was really a historic vote. This put people on record, where do you stand on this issue? And I think unfortunately John McCain came down on the wrong side.

MADDOW: The thing that is so troubling about McCain’s vote on this, I mean obviously given his history and his previous stance on the issue this is troubling, but what’s weird is that the whole idea of putting of everybody in the U.S. government on the same page in terms of abiding by the army field manual, that was the approach that he was pushing for,

RIECKHOFF: Yeah,

MADDOW: when he was leading on this issue not that long ago. And now he’s voted against his very own idea on this.

RIECKHOFF: Well, it reeks of political pandering and if this is the straight talk express, well let’s get down to some straight talk and figure out why he’s flip-flopping on this critical issue. I really was encourage to some extent to see him as the nominee because I think Andrew Sullivan, the blogger, was one of the first folks to recognize that that this would mean both candidates are against torture.

MADDOW: Yeah.

RIECKHOFF: But what does this? What does this change? Is this apart of the tough guy, John Wayne mentality? Is this pandering to some far rightwing base? I don’t know what it is but folks in the military know that torture is wrong, torture doesn’t work, you know and as we talk about Iraq this is counterproductive to the fight in Iraq and worldwide. When people wake-up in Uganda or in China and they’re 16 years old and they look at America and they say, “Wow, that country tortures people,” I hate that. It builds the momentum around the world against us. Whatever incremental gains we can have in Iraq, whatever incremental gains, which are arguable we can get through these intelligent tactics are completely compromised by the way this looks for us internationally. And we got to think all term and think beyond Iraq and think about the next 50 to 100 years of this country.