Well what do you know...

Dicky Cohen manages to crap out a half-way decent column:

The realization that life is not a movie has inexplicably yet to occur to Rudy Giuliani, despite the horrors of Sept. 11. Mistaking something he must have seen in the movies for real life, he mocked the alleged softies who condemn torture of any kind, saying of sleep deprivation, "They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly."

It's not silly, though, to Orson Swindle. He spent six years and four months as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and was subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation. One time, he went about 20 days without sleep. I asked him if he considered it torture.

"Oh, yes."

Swindle's account of his sleep deprivation lacks precision. Some of the time he was hallucinating, and so he relied on the reports of others to determine how long he was forced to stay awake. His jailers wanted him to write a propaganda letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy. Ultimately, Swindle did. In the end, people being tortured usually give their jailers what they want -- the truth, a lie, something in between. Torture can be an unreliable interrogation tool...

You could dismiss Giuliani's statements as campaign hot air and leave it at that. But to those who know something about his time as mayor, it is reminiscent of Giuliani's scary lack of empathy for victims and a concomitant inability to distinguish critics from enemies. These are the qualities that made him so unpopular in New York's black community (and elsewhere), and prompted Ed Koch to title his book about Giuliani "Nasty Man."

I doubt Giuliani had Orson Swindle in mind when he trivialized sleep deprivation as a pillowless night on a bumpy campaign flight. But he should have had a somber appreciation for the realities of torture and not, as he did, make it sound like a scene out of a movie. Swindle laughed when he heard Giuliani's comment. "He obviously doesn't understand what he's talking about," Swindle said.

It's a habit.

Here are some other torture victims...or actually worse, that Giuliani did not have any sympathy for.

- Patrick Dorismond

- Abner "Giuliani-Time" Louima