So it looks like Sean Hannity is willing to undergo waterboarding in a misguided attempt to prove it "isn't" torture. Great.
The current discussion on dkos right now seems to be between the "Hannity will totally get what he deserves" camp, and the "Hannity shouldn't be allowed to turn torture into a joke" camp.
Neither will happen, and here's why. Because no matter how powerful an emotional reaction Hannity will get out of us, it will not compare to the sight of seeing someone actually waterboarded.
Christopher Hitchens proved that.
Have you seen the Hitchens video? If you haven't, I think you should.
No amount of hooplah, or media hype, or frivolous side betting, or revenge fantasizing, or other surrounding trivia, will diminish the power of witnessing for yourself the very moment a human being breaks.
I don't care how much you dislike - even hate - Sean Hannity. You'd have to be a sick bastard not to feel the least bit sorry for him after seeing him suffer this. And he will suffer. This is torture, and he will not be able to fake his way through it as some fear he will. I mean, clearly he'll try. But he'll fail. And though he'll most likely shrug it off afterwards and say "that wasn't so bad", we'll still have the one second of him fearing for his very existence, captured for posterity, to prove to people just how terrible a crime waterboarding is.
And if the hooplah means millions on hand - many of whom will have no opinion, or the wrong opinion of whether or not waterboarding is torture - will witness the truth, then let there be hooplah.
Let there be Hannity.