On The Media

I miss the Garfield editorials. I was glad to hear evidence of their return, and I heartily applaud the decision to lead this week's show as you did.

The Bush Administration's secret torture policies are outrageous What's even worse is that the organizations still responsible for delivering the news to the largest fraction of the U.S. audience once again failed to assign the importance that the story deserved.

Way to call them on it, Bob.

Unfortunately, your article contradicts itself. You assert that the MSM is not the caricature of credulity, quiescence and complacency claimed by Left Wing Bloggers, while the treatment of this issue proves the caricature to be an objective definition of the MSM.

How in the name of all that is Holy has this country descended from the perceived bastion of human rights, and protector of Constitutional values, to a semi-police state that makes torture its official policy with nary a peep of protest from the public, our political leaders, or the press?

When I was a child, I wondered how the German state could have abandoned its rich cultural history and embraced the rise of the Nazi police state. I no longer wonder at that descent in to barbarism when I see how quickly we are willing to embrace oppressive policies and abandon our rights at the first indications of a threat to our security. (And, please, don't bother us by telling us about these things. They are unpleasant and interrupt the coverage of Brittany and Paris and OJ.)

Thank you for this great lead-off story. I too am happy to hear a Bob Garfield commentary.

This past week, I knew that this Administration had finally defeated me when the Blackwater story broke and I realized that I honestly didn't expect anything to happen. I expected no accountability, no admittance of anythign, no change in Blackwater's operating procedure. At most, we'd get some ineffectual House hearings for a couple of days. (I was pleasantly surprised that some changes do seem to be coming out of it, but still the point is that I no longer expect any accountability to truth or justice or anything else.)

I wonder if the undercoverage of the torture memo story is symptomatic of the same feeling of defeat. It's not a story because no one is actually surprised. It's not a story because no one expects the Administration to tell the truth. No one expects the whole truth to ever come out. By the end of the news cycle, partisan pundits will have pounded the Truth on the torture issue into a hopeless mash of opinions, endless shades of gray. The fact is that, everything is political now, so there is no truth.

I think there is a big difference between aggressive interrogation techniques and torture. Mr. Garfield, and Jimmy Carter disagree. I play a few clips from this segment, one with President Carter on WBZ, and President Bush's response on my podcast this week. What we do in Guantanamo is not torture, it works, and it has resulted in capturing high value targets. Give the show a listen and see if you agree.