The Humorists Get It

From Dan Froomkin's WashingtonPost.com blog:

There's nothing funny about torture. And yet the most insightful -- and certainly most succinct -- views on the subject, as usual, come from the political "humorists".

Here are cartoons by Stuart Carlson, Ann Telnaes, Mike Luckovich, Steve Benson, Tony Auth, Rex Babin, Bill Mitchell, and John Sherffius.

Here's video of Comedy Central's Jon Stewart bitterly playing the game: "Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading or O-Tay."

Stewart also shows White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend telling CNN on Thursday: "We start with the least harsh measures first. It stops after -- if someone becomes cooperative." But as Stewart points out, that's not a refutation of torture. "That's how you do it. It wouldn't work the other way around."

And John Oliver explains administration policy to Stewart: "If we do do those things, they must not be torture."

Stewart: "So words, in and of themselves, have no value?"

Oliver: "Wow. Wow. I'd have thought you'd at least support our words, Jon. . . . Our brave, fighting words who've been serving this country since this war on terror began, many of them making the ultimate sacrifice: Losing their definitions.

"Words like torture, victory, surge, mission, accomplished. Once filled with purpose, now signifying nothing."