If I have the story straight, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey isn’t sure that waterboarding is illegal torture. That seems dumb enough on the face of it – the worlds are mutually inclusive – but it gets worse.
President Bush and others in the Republican camp don’t think it’s fair to grill Mukasey about it because he hasn’t been briefed about it, so he can’t know if it’s torture or not. So, to sum up the administration’s official position on waterboarding and torture in general:
1. We’re not torturing anyone.
2. Only people with high level clearance can be briefed on whether or not waterboarding is torture. By the way, we’re not doing it, but only people with high level clearance to official U.S. policy will have access to the specifics of how waterboarding is done.
3. In other words, we know it’s torture, but Mukasey can’t possibly know until we tell him what we’ve (not) been doing and he reads how it’s (not) been done in great detail in the official record, so it’s unfair to ask him about it.
There you have it, clear as day. Stop asking Mukasey about waterboarding.
On a completely different note, I heard something during Game Three of the World Series that amused and puzzled me. I’m a fan of Warren Zevon’s music – the dark sense of humor, the grasp of history, the baritone to falsetto dripping with sarcasm. So anytime I happen upon a Zevon song in an unexpected place, it’s a pleasant surprise. His words are important. He was good at words, had a folkie’s appreciation for them and paid attention to them.
But I’m convinced no one has ever listened to the words of “Excitable Boy,” seemingly one of the more popular tunes marketers and programmers have taken out of context to use as background music. I’ve heard it as musak. I’ve heard it as incidental music. And during the Series, it was outro music behind a quick interview on the way to a commercial, conveniently cutting out before the vocals started. So before it winds up in a Burger King commercial, here are the lyrics, for your consideration:
Excitable Boy
Warren Zevon & LeRoy P. Marinell
Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
He took in the four a.m. show at the Clark
Excitable boy, they all said
And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom
Excitable boy, they all said
And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
After ten long years they let him out of the home
Excitable boy, they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
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