Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Wednesday Afternoon (Later)

One other thing about waterboarding. There seems to be a growing fad among pundits and journalists — especially those who wish to defend the Bush administration — to announce they've had themselves "waterboarded" and it's no big deal.

I'm no expert on this but it seems to me the premise of waterboarding in the real world is to make the prisoner think he's about to die; that this could be the time they go too far with it. Being waterboarded by someone who cares about your welfare — who probably would go to prison if you actually did die — is not the same thing. To simulate the experience of an enemy prisoner being waterboarded, you have to be waterboarded by someone who wouldn't be all that upset if you drowned...and might even get some jollies from it.

• Posted at 4:12 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

For a while, those decrying our country's use of torture were arguing that above and beyond its illegality and immorality, it just plain doesn't work and is most likely to lead to false confessions. What seems to be emerging now, thanks to this story from the McClatchy News Service, is that false confessions — particularly of a Saddam-al Qaida link, were precisely what were wanted.

• Posted at 3:45 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Before he was on late night, Dick Cavett had a morning show on ABC. It went on the air on March 4, 1968 under the title, This Morning. Later, they changed the name to The Dick Cavett Show but it didn't make a lot of difference. Nobody watched under either name and it left the air as of January 24, 1969. It was a great program in absolutely the wrong time slot. (In 1980, NBC made the exact same mistake with a kid they'd found named David Letterman.)

Cavett went from the AM show to a brief summer replacement series in prime time...and then on to a late night slot that he inhabited for three years of steady telecasts and two more in a rotating format with other shows. Before he left the morning slot, he did a prime-time special replaying some of his most interesting segments. Our video embed today consists of excerpts from that special — about twenty-five minutes of it with a few abrupt edits. In it, you'll see Groucho Marx, Jack Burns, Bob Hope, Woody Allen, Pat McCormick and a few other folks. I wish someone would just rerun these shows intact.

• Posted at 10:11 AM · LINK

Wednesday Morning

Norm Coleman wants the appeals process in that Minnesota election to take as long as possible.

A Democratic group has cleverly set up this fund whereby people who want Coleman to go away pledge to donate a dollar to the Democratic party for each day it takes until Al Franken gets seated. It's a good idea but I get the feeling that some wealthy Republican is paying Coleman something like $20,000 a day for each day he can delay it.

• Posted at 9:45 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Nate Silver thinks the Republican Party is morphing into the Libertarian Party. Some might argue it's the other way around.

• Posted at 2:50 AM · LINK