Cheney, Mancow, and Ketchum

This past week has been interesting.

Our ex-VP Cheney's snarl has been all over the airwaves justifying "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding, which he claims are not torture.

Matthew "Mancow" Muller's been explaining how he took on waterboarding, intending to show how it can be endured. Instead, he found seven seconds of waterboarding unendurable and concluded there's no doubt it's torture. "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow told listeners. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture." (Quote courtesy of Alternate Brain).

Fortunately there are good folks like David Ketchum, whose "All Things Counter" blog is on my sideboard. David recently wrote, based on his current experience in Cambodia, "I am just hoping that one day, we'll be able to take the long view of things. Coercion, violence, threats, fear - in the long run, these things always destroy, no matter how necessary and/or practical they feel in the moment."

So, Mr. Cheney, there you have it. A right wing apologist calls waterboarding what it is - torture - and a real American patriot explains that the tactics you espouse "always destroy". Please, go back to Wyoming and organize a hunting party for your friends. There are lots of ways for you to be scary.