03 July, 2008

The Exciting Life of Christopher Hitchens

First he gets waxed. Then he is waterboarded.

The picture in that first piece is horrifying, perhaps even a legitimate torture device by itself. (“If you do not make us your Facebook friends, we will hold your eyes open with calipers and make you look at this picture. Hoo ha ha ha hoo ha.”) And speaking of torture, here’s what Hitchens has to say in the second piece:

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

It’s a relief that both John McCain and Barack Obama agree with that view, with McCain having stuck to a principled stand against torture in the primaries despite that position being unpopular in his party’s base. Perhaps it helped that he had first-hand knowledge of the subject. And now Hitch has it as well, having been waterboarded and waxed. To think he volunteered for both…

(Links via email from Manish Vij.)