Thanks a lot, Mr. Gray, for rendering my own cut-rate plan to waterboard myself  in the kitchen sink (the poor man’s–or blogger’s–version) “quaint”–as Alberto Gonzalez might say. However, inspired by Mr. Hitchens’ noble sacrifice, I decided that I should experience first-hand what it’s like being a no longer Trotskyist/not quite neoconservative polemicist with a prodigious capacity for disgust and self-righteousness. Yes, I would subject myself, if only momentarily and in the comfort and safety of a controlled environment, to being Christopher Hitchens. After chain-smoking a pack of Marlboros while composing rationales for the war in Iraq I filled a champagne bucket with a quality gin and let myself have it. I’m afraid I could only take a fraction of this treatment, recoiling in terror at the first dry heave. While it isn’t quite torture, my head is killing me, my lungs feel like two bags of coal dust, and I’m not inspired in the least.

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