Think of it as a good, long gargle . . .

Almost Attorney General (AAG) Mukaasey : “I don’t know what’s involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.”

Senator Whitehouse: “‘If waterboarding is constitutional’ is a massive hedge.”

AAG Mukasey: “No, I said if it’s torture; I’m sorry, I said if it’s torture.”

Senator Whitehouse: “If it’s torture; that’s a massive hedge. I mean, it either is or it isn’t. Do you have an opinion on whether waterboarding, which is the practice of putting somebody in a reclining position, strapping him down, putting cloth over their faces, and pouring water over the cloth to simulate the feeling of drowning, is that constitutional?”

AAG Mukasey: “If it amounts to ‘torture’ it is not constitutional.”

Senator Whitehouse: “I’m very disappointed in that answer. I think it’s clearly semantic.”

AAG Mukasey: “I’m sorry.”

Here’s the Talking Points Memo (TPM) video of the macabre exchange:

(Accessed on 10-26-07)

“Sorry.” Mukasey’s sorry he can’t come to any real conclusion on what he must view as a question fraught with vast constitutional ambiguity. I mean, let’s face it folks, neither Constitution nor Bill of Rights, after all, explicitly forbids waterboarding, and the practice of waterboarding was already a century or two old in the 18th century and thus well known . . . so . . . [my head’s about to explode]. For me, it’s never been a particularly mind numbing question whether waterboarding is torture, and whether it thus violates 8th amendment; it simply is, and does, there is no ambiguity about it. I think that belief is held by most sentient and even slightly moral beings in this or any other country, planet, or solar system. A tomato plant knows these things. Even constitutional lawyers know this.

What’s happened, of course, is that WingNutNation has so captured the framing of the discussion of such things that a United States Senator is reduced to asking, with a more or less straight face, a possible Attorney General of the United States such a patently outrageous question as whether waterboarding just might be torture and thus just might possibly be unconstitutional. The WingNut success in framing issues to their cruel advantage has caused us to forget what we used to take for granted. The simple story here is that the Bush lawyers have attempted, with some success, to reframe the question of “torture” as one of simple — and cold — semantics, of definition (just as Senator Whitehouse observed).

This redefining of grossly abhorrent actions which everyone possessing a scintilla of moral fiber knows are, well, grossly abhorrent, is a mainstay of the WingNut “philosophy.” They think it has a certain elegance in its simplicity; it ain’t torture because it ain’t on the list! And we write the list! With the complicity of a nearly catatonic Democratic party, they’ve managed to redefine many ancient practices of the dark art of torture as merely “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and waterboarding appears to be one of those. So, don’t worry, it’s absolutely true when Bush or Cheney say, “In this country, we don’t torture.”