TOM MAGUIRE has thoughts on torture. He’s a bit hard on Andrew Sullivan, but not as hard as Sullivan is being on me — Sullivan has brought out the waterboard of blogging, reprinting emails from readers of his who say they’ll never read me again, only Sullivan, from now on. Okay, it’s actually more like the endless-replaying-of-Barry-Manilow of blogging.

I’ve gotten some emails from readers wondering why Sullivan seems to think that my blog is the most important aspect of the torture debate, especially as — once the Bush-bashing and posturing is set aside — my position and Sullivan’s aren’t really very different. (As I wrote a while back, “What would I do? Ban anything that causes injury or outright pain. I’m not so sure about sleep deprivation and things like that. I’d permit playing Barry Manilow, too.” Okay, so now I’m rethinking the Barry Manilow part.) I’ll spare you the text of those emails; I used to wonder about that, but I’ve pretty much given up. Andrew will blog about what he wants to blog about, and I will blog about what I want to blog about. And that state of affairs will bother, well, at most one of us.

Meanwhile, note this comment by Tom Holsinger.

UPDATE: Reader Steven Jens demonstrates that the email thing works both ways:

I’d just like to say that I will never read Andrew Sullivan again. I have been increasingly put off by his hysteria, his double standards, and his rumored habit of squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube. Time Magazine has given him a bully pulpit, and it’s a shame that he can’t be as wise, reasoned, or downright handsome as you are.

Heh. I think we’ve just seen the future of the blogosphere. And it scares me.

UPDATE: Uh oh. Manilow-blogging is spreading.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s an out of control blog phenomenon!