A Slam Dunk for the Vice President...

When White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked today to define what a dunk in the water is, he responded, " It's a dunk in the water." This statement comes on the heels of a controversy that began, on Tuesday, when the vice president was asked during an interview if "a dunk in water is a no brainer if it can save lives." The vice president replied: "Well, it's a no brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture."

Whew, "for a while there" Mr. Cheney probably thought he'd get off the hook for making a statement that appeared to most human rights groups, and most human beings, too, for that matter, to be condoning torture, as well as an interrogation technique, "waterboarding," that is widely regardly as cruel and inhumane.

You can bet that the vice president is taking a huge sigh of relief today in light of the White House's embarrassing attempt at damage control when claiming that his remarks had nothing to do with waterboarding; would you believe scuba diving? Hiring Tony Snow was, arguably, the smartest move this administration has made as he has turned a town riddled with right-wing bible-thumping hypocrites into theatre of the absurd.

But, the rest of us are taking an even greater sign of relief that we have only 2 more years to deal with the level of sophistry, and Machiavellian machinations of Karl Rove, Bush, Cheney, and Co. While, as Tony Snow calls it, "a dunk in the water is a dunk in the water," it's yet another slam dunk for an administration that ranks up there as the first to acknowledge its own policies for what they are "no brainers."