Bird on a wire

In fifty-plus years, authoritarian Republicans have devolved the things they wave around all the way to a pair of panties: "I have in my hand a pair of panties that has humiliated over 317 al Qaeda terrorists at Guantánamo." Just like Ann Coulter's fantasy drinking buddy Joe McCarthy, Dana Rohrabacher pretends that concern for security policy is his chief goal, when in fact unfettered power and political gain are the real purpose.

Look, Dana, no matter how many times you say that the prisoners should be just as happy as Mel Gibson cheek to jowl with Goldie Hawn's thong, you're off point. Even Divine's panties wouldn't be torture (well, maybe), though they'd definitely violate the Geneva Conventions.

Your cry of panties, panties, panties is the puerile stunt of a manipulative 10-year-old. It's waterboarding that's torture, and you're defending it by trying to distract the media into immature giggles. It's as if a murderer, caught with a smoking gun in one hand and a pillow with a through and through in the other, defends himself by saying, "Well, I didn't suffocate that dead guy."

An official defense of torture (again, the waterboard, stupid) that helps it continue could be a war crime.

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.