Water Bored

I've seen a lot of these videos over the years, but there's more of them appearing seemingly every week. This is another clip of a moderately famous person being waterboarded. In this case it's the radio DJ named Mancow.

He has the water poured on his face and gives up after a few seconds, proving how discomforting waterboarding is. Immediately after he surrenders, his co-host endlessly repeats "You're soaked." And that, it appears, is the extent of the lasting damage of waterboarding.



So, is waterboarding "torture?" I guess it is, because it would be "torturous" to go through it. But surely the fact that so many celebrities line up to be waterboarded proves how safe and untorture-like it is. In a strange way, these endless You Tube waterboarding clips show that waterboarding is like some kind of a goofy party trick: "Hey, Bob, how long can you balance a beer bottle on your head? Hey, Lou, can you drink beer while doing a headstand? Hey, Tony, how long can you last with water being poured on your face?"

US agents have never been accused of pulling out fingernails or electrocuting genitals. If they had, it's doubtful that Mancow and Christopher Hitchens would drop trow and say, "Light me up."

It's water. Being poured on your face. It sucks, and then it's over. So no one's afraid to try it. Then they thank their co-host and carry on with their day.

I doubt it's the effect these guys are going for, but they're pretty much proving that it's no big deal. Mark my words: you're going to hear about it taking place at a frat initiation very soon. Kids, schools, and waterboarding? CNN will have a field day.