News Item: The Department of Justice has released previously classified memos which detail frequently brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency under President George W. Bush.

( Report on released memos.)

Waterboarding? Check. Sleep deprivation? Check. Stuck in a box with insects? Check, check, check.

Surprised? Sorry, no check mark there.

Slamming suspects into a wall? Forced nudity? Please. These are the tawdry, tepid tactics of a Torquemada. Besides, however into it they were, there's no way the CIA did any of them with the gruesome gusto of say, the Coen brothers or "The Sopranos." (Decapitation? Check.)

In response to the embarrassing memos, some have said that America is better than that. I agree. Even when it comes to torture.

I mean, where's the creativity and originality? Where's the innovation we're world-famous for?

This the country that gave the world jazz, baseball, the musical, the Slurpee, steroids, the home computer and "American Idol." Without our national zeal for the new and the never-tried, there is no "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" And without "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" there is no "Slumdog Millionaire."

I think I make my point.

But when it comes to torture, it's all recycled retro crap right out of the Spanish Inquisition. America, we can do better!

Countless millions of Americans are tortured every single day. Just ask them. And not in some dark, extraordinarily-renditioned dungeon in Bulgaria. But right here at home. I say let's tap our own deep wells of purely and ingeniously American types of torture.

Ever sit through a Ken Burns special 12-part series on PBS?

By Part Four, if given a choice, I take the forced nudity or the ear-splitting Iron Maiden tape for six hours. Burns has already lent his maddening earnestness and insufferable self-importance to such subjects as the Civil War and World War II, Jazz, Baseball, the National Park system, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty. Word is, next up is a seven-part series on the history of origami.

On second thought, I'll take my chances with the water-boarding.

We could make interrogation suspects have to sit through a Lindsay Lohan interview, as she painfully rambles on about her wreck of a young life, offering all manner of personal detail we so wish she would she would not. You don't think that would make someone cry, "uncle?" It makes me cry for real now, just thinking about it.

Or, instead of actually flying suspects on private, unmarked CIA planes to secret proxy prisons halfway around the world, we could just put them through the actual boarding process of your basic American domestic flight. The waiting, the delays, the take-your-shoes-off, take-your-water-away TSA fun, right through to the finding your cramped seat, no overhead space, here's-a-damn-bag-of-peanuts-for-your-six-hour-flight, and that'll-be-five-bucks-for-the-blanket portion, too.

Well, maybe nix that. They may actually fly more comfortably on the CIA flights.

But you get the idea. Buy American! Think outside the (insect-filled) box! Torture American style!

After all, we have to endure all of the above and more. Why should the bad guys get off so easily?