As if our "homegrown" Senators weren't culpable enough in the torturing of detainees, now we have to deal with Senator Kit Bond, our neighbor to the East as well.

"What the CIA is doing is not torture. It conforms to the Detainee Treatment Act, the Geneva Convention, the Convention against Torture. None of these things that are being used, by any stretch of the imagination, could be described as torture,"

Just a little simulated drowning...nothing that might cause severe mental pain. It's kind of relaxing really. It's all in how you do it.

"There are different ways of doing it. It's like swimming, freestyle, backstroke. The waterboarding could be used almost to define some of the techniques that our trainees are put through, but that's beside the point. It's not being used," Bond said. However, he went on to say that he "certainly would not favor it in any circumstance."

We're going to tell ourselves that the Senator from Missouri just means there are many types of waterboarding, just as there are many different forms of swimming, and not that waterboarding is akin to a nice leisurely swim in your neighborhood pool. Either way, these statements are cause for alarm.