The point was that Obama didn't know what he was talking about, having gotten his information from a second-hand source who also didn't know what he was talking about, and his example was false.

To maintain an increasingly stretched concept, people have had to try to straddle the ideas that anything that makes a prisoner physically uncomfortable is "torture," like being forced to stand in one spot for a long time; but that British intelligence agents who threatened prisoners with imminent execution, and used drugs and psychological attacks, didn't "torture" because they didn't actually do anything physical to the prisoners. Is this consistent with the Geneva Conventions?

But the lie was useful, and it worked on those who really don't care what the truth is.

There's no consistency, but then in politics, consistency usually leaves the room quite early.