Furious about what they see as negative media stereotypes about waterboarding, a group representing the nation's waterboarders marched on Washington today.
The group, which calls itself the National Association of Waterboarders and Controlled Drowners, is the largest organization of its kind, representing over 20,000 of the nation's waterboarders.
Waterboarders across the country have silently seethed for the past week as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey about his views on the controversial interrogation technique.
But after several days of hearing senators repeatedly denigrate the practice on national television, waterboarders "have had enough," said Carol Foyler, executive director of the waterboarders' group.
"When senators use the words 'controlled drowning,' people ignore the 'controlled' part and focus on the 'drowning' part," Ms. Foyler said. "As someone who spent years of training to become a licensed waterboarder, I'm deeply offended by this."
Braving chilly November temperatures to make their point about the media's negative stereotyping of them, the angry torturers got some moral support when one of their most prominent supporters, Vice President Dick Cheney, emerged from his secure undisclosed location to address them.
The vice president received a thunderous ovation from the crowd when he proposed that the government earmark $1.6 billion to improve the media image of waterboarding and waterboarders.
"There's nothing wrong with waterboarding that a little public relations makeover wouldn't fix," the vice president told the crowd. "For starters, why not call it dunking?"
Elsewhere, faced with a Writers Guild strike, Paramount Pictures said it would produce the second "Transformers" film without a script, "just like the first one."
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com. He hosts an all-new edition of "Next Week's News" starring Amy Sedaris. John Oliver (The Daily Show) and Christian Finnegan (VH1's Best Week Ever) at Comix on Thursday January 17 at 8 PM. Comix is located at 353 West 14th Street, just east of Ninth Avenue. For tickets, call 212-524-2500 or go to comixny.com. For a $5 discount, use the promotional code ANDY.
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