Torture or Grandstanding?

It seems that Christopher Hitchins wasn't close enough to the war on terror and needed a little bit of extra insight. So he did what we've all thought about doing at one time or another, I'm sure, and had himself waterboarded. I have to say, I'm not entirely sure just what he was trying to accomplish. On a small level, he was apparently not sure whether waterboarding would qualify as torture. Although one might think that that's ground that's been covered quite thoroughly (I had a round up of a small amount of it a couple of years back), but there are still a number of people (including the attorney general) who refuse to acknowledge that fact. I suspect that they're aware of the truth but pretend they're not for ideological reasons. And Hitchens was a member of their company. After experiencing it for himself (twice, just to see if he could handle it better the second time), he's changed his tune--yep, it's torture. But who does he think he's going to convince? I've been convinced for some time, as I suspect most people have. I didn't need one more person undergoing to procedure to tell me what it's like. And those people who deny that it's torture for ideological reasons haven't changed their ideology. Is Rush going to say that he'd believed none of this was any worse than fraternity hazing, but not that Hitchins has spoken, he sees the whole thing differently? I'm certainly not going to hold my breath waiting. Still, at least Hitchins now has a story he can tell the grandkids.