I know this is old--but Waterboarding as Entertainment?

And I wish Dennis Miller luck with that, actually, because apparently, torture is easy.

It's comedy that's hard.

I'm not sure exactly what kind of masochists reminiscing about "swirlies" would pony up for a cheesecloth surprise, and I'm pretty sure the market for that treatment involves a side of latex, a whiff of the leather glove and a healthy dose of boot-to-neck consensual play complete with safe words, and satisfaction or your money back. Which of late might be Miller's line, and add a loofah, and you've got O'Reilly's speciality, too.

But see, that would be normal. Because there would be a *willing* clientele, albeit a niche one, paying for a certain kind of treatment. Not unwilling prisoners who haven't been charged with anything so much as "disappeared" and kind of fucked about with to play at getting intelligence, when a lot of solid opinion suggests that force isn't actually a good way to get actionable intell, the fictional television program 24 notwithstanding. In fact, because of a lack of consensuality and safe words, when these people regardless of their intentions, connections, of what they've ever done before, hit a court of....um, law? Well, they can be released. Because the information was illegally obtained. The ones who even go to trial that is. Because so many of, say, Gitmo detainees have no files. Nothing they can be tried on.

Yes, it's very like a theme park. Or a circus. Fun has been had. Then people go home. And dissatisfied customers?

Let's just suppose these folks might predictably seek action. If they were dangerous before, they've been motivated, now. Are they "returning to the battlefield" or new converts to the struggle? Hard to say.

Is it still funny? I know how jokes do suffer when they are explained.