At the risk of over-thinking something that obviously epitomises the unintellectual nature of much of CPAC, it occurs to me that the “I’d rather be waterboarded than vote for McCain” T-shirt (so stylishly modeled by Michael in the photo shown here) makes no sense from the perspective of anyone who didn’t buy it as a joke.  To listen to many of the people most furious with McCain, particularly relating to the treatment of detainees, his objections to waterboarding are misguided because, according to them, waterboarding isn’t torture (it’s just trickling some water down someone’s nose–no big deal!).  But if it isn’t all that bad, it doesn’t say much about your contempt for McCain that you would rather be waterboarded than vote for him.  Then again, perhaps the best thing about the phrase is that it works for both crazy and sane audiences: for the true believers, waterboarding isn’t torture, but voting for McCain would be, while for the rest of us voting for McCain might seem even worse than actual torture.