Waterboarding

Regarding waterboarding, novelist Stephen King recently said, "[I]f the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture."

OK. Fair enough, provided when we catch the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammad we put him in a room with Stephen King, and tell him, "Look, Steve, we're giving you a choice. You see, Abdul here isn't talking. We're pretty sure many lives would be saved if he talks. Of course, you know best. We'll let you decide. You can either let all these people die, or else you can let us waterboard him -- waterboarding being the most humane form of coercion we could come up with."

These sanctimonious prigs don't seem to get it. No moral person favors techniques like waterboarding; however, serious people would compare it to something like cannibalism. There should be a hard and fast rule against it -- EXCEPT.

Except what? Well, if 20 people were stranded, say, and two of them went for help, and these two found themselves starving with 20 miles to go, and one of them died, the survivor might actually have a moral duty to dine on his buddy so he could make it the other 20 miles and save the whole group.

The next president can read Mr. King. Mr. Bush can keep reading Vince Flynn.