Further evidence that, like the AIG bonus tax, the Democrats are going to make this subject go bye-bye very soon, and very quietly. The more people know about this subject, the more comfortable with it they seem to be: Whereas 55 percent overall approve of harsh interrogation, 61 percent who are following the story “very closely” do. Likewise, while 51 percent overall support a government investigation of interrogations, 58 percent who are following the story very closely oppose it — a finding that jibes with a new NYT/CBS poll out tonight. Think this will find its way onto Pelosi’s desk tomorrow?

According to the poll, sixty-two percent of Americans do not think Congress should hold hearings to investigate the administration’s treatment of detainees. Only a third of Americans thinks Congress should investigate. That’s the same proportion as thought so in February.

Republicans overwhelming oppose Congress holding such hearings, and sixty percent of independents agree. Democrats – much like Democratic representatives in Congress — are more divided. Forty-six percent say Congress should hold hearings, while fifty-one percent say they are not necessary.

Interestingly, the NYT poll has a 46/37 plurality saying that waterboarding is never justified, which may mean, per the Gallup results, that Americans are okay with most other forms of harsh interrogation but turn squeamish at that one in particular. I wonder what percentage of them have the wrong idea of what it means:

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed’s face — not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of “five sessions of ill-treatment.”

“The water was poured 183 times — there were 183 pours,” the official explained, adding that “each pour was a matter of seconds.”…

The memos did not note that the sessions would be made up of a number of short pours — the ones the U.S. official said lasted “a matter of seconds” — and that created the huge numbers quoted by the New York Times: 183 on Mohamed, 83 on Zubaydah.

Pours, not waterboards.

Exit question: How many seconds’ worth of water poured on the face of the guy who destroyed the World Trade Center is “inhumane”?