Townhall.com’s political editor Guy Benson –who writes most frequently in the Tipsheet– was in studio with me today, and he had this interesting exchange with South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint:

GB: Senator, completely agree with the last point that you made, and I am wondering is there any way that pressure can be brought to bear on the President, in a nonpartisan way, just to say Mr. President, congratulations, this is a great victory not only for you and your national security team, but of course for the country and the world. Part of the reason that this success was able to be enjoyed like it has in the last couple of days, is because of seeds that were planted ten years ago with harsh interrogations techniques in black site CIA prisons that Barack Obama, the candidate, made a big show of opposing – might he be vulnerable right now to arguments that perhaps he ought to reconsider his position, and his administration’s positions, on whether or not those might need to be reimplemented, reinstituted, for future crucial missions like this one.

JD: Well, if we’re going to succeed on that point, it’s going to be behind closed doors, because his whole constituency in the Democrat Party is going to push back against that. I think what he’s seen, and his people have seen, is as the information that comes from this harsh information has led to justice for many thousands of Americans, and thousands of people all over the world that this maniac has killed. So I think behind closed doors and the private hearings and the top secret meeting that we’ll have with some in the administration. It’s just something we’re going to work on, and hopefully, this is something the President maybe has come to believe behind the scenes. But he certainly couldn’t say that in public, because the whole constituency of the Democrat Party would not be with him.

The transcript of the complete interview with Senator DeMint is here.