Do we torture with a grimace or do we torture with a smile?

Publius has an interesting hypothesis about the way the torture/Geneva convention issue may blow back into BushCo face. Publius has been over optimistic before, but do you think he is overoptimistic now?
My feeling was that the split between two alternative military commission bills was a ruse – there is hardly any difference between them. By letting the McCain version win, Bush gets to do torture as much as he wants, while getting an opportunity to show public humility and going along with “the way the system works” and duping the nation that the “softer” version of the bill does not actually condone torture.
But even if that may have been correct initially, Publius argues that it has gone much further than Rove wanted and turned into a debate of what America stands for – something that BushCo does not want to have, of course. In the end, it may work well for those Republicans who have distanced themselves from Bush – and these are legion – and help them win in November, so who knows who the winner is going to be in the end. Your thoughts?