Christopher Hitchens Hits the Drink

Christopher Hitchens recently subjected himslf to waterboarding. Science Avenger was very impressed: "Leave it to the rare atheist hawk to be one of the few to put his drowning where his politics are and see for himself what the process is really like." It's a stunt that helps Hitch maintain his brand and you fell for it

I think Hitchens has a guilty conscience about his support for the invasion of Iraq. This is an indirect way of expiating some of that guilt.

It's also a form of grandstanding. "I, Christopher Hitchens, former socialist who rebeled against my leftist colleagues by supporting the invasion of Iraq, will now demonstrate my intellectual integrity and physical courage by belaboring the obvious fact that waterboarding is indeed torture."

I find the whole exercise pointless as well as being beside the point. Hitchens, to my recollection, never advocated the use of torture or denied that this specific technique was toturous. Hitchens was an advocate of the invasion of Iraq and remains one its leading apologists. There is no intrinsic relationship between the invasion of Iraq and the use of torture by the Bush administration. Could Hitchens be so naive as to have believed that waterboarding wasn't as bad as it proved to be? I find that hard to believe.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq visited untold death and misery upon millions of Iraqis. Hitchens' stunt does nothing to alleviate it or make us forget the irresponsibility of Hitchens and others who supported and still support it.

John McCain Only Opposes Torture When He's the Victim

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding.

I used to like John McCain and probably would have voted for him in 2000 if he'd been the Republican nominee. I would not vote for him now, even before this vote, but I've lost the last vestige of respect I once held for him. McCain is a tragic figure, a man so consumed with the desire to become president that he'll sacrifice anything to achieve his goal. When McCain started his second run for the White House, he subdivided his integrity and sold off lots, a piece or two at a time. He embraced Bush, Falwell and Robertson and has reversed just about every position he ever took that ran counter to the Republican playbook. And who can forget one of his greatest hits, his transparently stage-managed visit to a Baghdad market while under the umbrella of attack helicopters and a cordon of armed troops just out of camera range.

I think we should torture McCain by depriving him of the presidency.