A Hitch calls for a gettiup.

The stunner from today's media banquet is Christopher Hitchens' piece in the new issue of "Vanity Fair". And by stunner, I mean something that has been said a bazillion times but is still amazing to hear uttered by one of the most conservative defenders of the War on Terror and its tactics. The Hitch had himself waterboarded at the behest of his editor. Without irony, he broke like a candyglass mirror. His description of his conversion is chilling. I've always admired The Hitch's erudite style no matter how much I find his point of view to be utterly abhorrent. But since he now agrees in earnest with what I have always believed gives me limited hope for the debate over torture. Waterboarding is torture. If you think otherwise, you need to schedule a trip to North Carolina to test your theory.

Hope your own "simulated" torture is limited to watching anything remotely associated with "The Hills" today. Rock on.

Without realizing - shame on all of us.

Here's a hand grenade - the piece on the Bush Administration's torture policy in today's NYTimes cuts to the existential core question of our Nation's survival. Read it. Dubya has loved to defend his actions over the last few years by saying some retard version of "history will decide." Well, this smells an awful lot like history. Even if you don't give a rat's arse about civil liberties or if the nuances wash over you like so much simulated drowning, it is chilling. I'll sum it up for those that can't be bothered by the itemized dissembling of our core values about human liberty. The Bushies believe that torture can be defined to allow for the shite-beating of people we capture in foreign lands. Head slapping, naked exposure to freezing temperatures and simulated drowning are not torture. At least if it occurs off American soil. This piece is chock full of the most astonishing crap since the last season of anything Paris Hilton was associated with. But the stunning asides - John Yoo being known as "Dr. Yes" within the Justice Department, James Comey calling out David Addington as the nefarious bastard that he surely is, Janet Ashcroft sticking out her tongue at Fredo Gonzales and Andrew "Lowest Possible" Card as they left her husband's hospital bedside? Frickin' priceless. This one's gots legs. Bet your last diminished, disgraced dollar on that.

Hope your own national disgraces deal with womens' World Cup soccer today. Rock on.