Press paid no attention to torture until rift in GOP: "That's high drama."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Bush Gets His Way
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, September 22, 2006

....Members of the traditional press were paying scant attention to the issue of state-sanctioned torture until a rift appeared within the Republican party itself. That, in Washington, qualifies as high drama.

And now that the rift has been papered over, most reporters' tendencies will be to cover the issue mostly from the angle of its effectiveness as a political cudgel in the mid-term elections.

But the American public deserves to hear a full and open debate on this important moral issue. And if Congress won't host it, then it's up to the Fourth Estate to rise to the challenge.

Step one would be some actual reporting into the CIA interrogation program, including aggressive truth-squadding of the assertions coming from the White House....What little investigative reporting I've seen on the program thus far, by Ron Suskind among others, suggests that Bush's assertion is exaggerated or just plain wrong -- and that in fact the use of torture or near-torture has produced little or no valuable information....Here's a question reporters should be asking: If, as Suskind has alleged, the administration is aware that those harsh CIA interrogation tactics don't really work -- and no one is currently in CIA detention anyway -- then why is this such an important issue for the White House? One possible answer: That this has nothing to do with the future; that it's about giving them cover for their actions in the past....

***

...as the White House gears up to use detainee policy as a political issue, it is incumbent on the press to remind the public that there are not only two choices: Doing it Bush's way and letting terrorists go free. Even if the Democrats aren't coherent about other alternatives, the press should be....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

[Supersedeas]

1. The attention is analogous to those watching a horse race and sipping mint

julips - the substance of the debate was never considered - only the personalities involved.

Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Right -- the issue of our country marginalizing the Geneva Convention...

is not addressed. The press fails us again and again.