Re: Rendition... Did LA Times Get 'Punked'? Liberals Push Back Against LA Times Story

[WillyT]

Liberals push back against LA Times story

<snip>

Many liberal online journalists and bloggers are pushing back against the LA Times story, saying that the paper "got rolled" and/or "punked."

At his blog at The Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan writes about the "rendition canard."

"For some reason, many people on the right and a few within the CIA feel the need to minimize the difference between Obama and Bush on the terror war," Sullivan writes. "And so we are greeted with whoops and hollers because the Obama administration will return to the rendition policies of the GWH Bush and Clinton administrations."

However, Sullivan, Washington Monthly's Hilzoy, Harper's Scott Horton, and Cernig at Newshoggers all beg to differ with the LA Times take on Obama's 'endorsement' of rendition.

"It is not the practice of 'extraordinary rendition' that the Bush-Cheney administration pioneered to supplement its own torture program," Sullivan writes. "It is the practice of capturing terror suspects and rendering them to non-torturing foreign governments for detention, interrogation or prosecution."

Sullivan charges, "The LA Times got rolled by the usual suspects, who seem not to understand how the program changed under Bush-Cheney."

At Washington Monthly, Hilzoy argues that "in addition to announcing that the administration will obey the Convention Against Torture, the administration will also study not whether to send detainees off to be tortured, but how to ensure that our policies are not intended to result in their torture, and will not result in their torture. This seems to me like a very clear renunciation of the policy of sending people to third countries to be tortured."

"The Los Angeles Times just got punked," Scott Horton writes.

Horton adds, "In the course of the last week we’ve seen a steady stream of efforts designed to show that Obama is continuing the counterterrorism programs that he previously labeled as abusive and promised to shut down. These stories are regularly sourced to unnamed current or former CIA officials and have largely run in right-wing media outlets. However, now we see that even the Los Angeles Times can be taken for a ride."

<snip>

Link: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_preserves_rendition_in__0201.html

:shrug:

[WillyT]

1. Kick !!!

:kick:

[merh]

2. Plenty of folks bought the crap.

The executive order is clear - federal law against torture will govern and the CIA private prisons are outlawed.

even the liberal blogger at rawstory bought the crap

[WillyT]

3. Yep... The LA Times Wasn't The Only One Who Got Rolled...

:shrug:

[merh]

6. It's a damn shame folks cannot think for themselves.

[Pirate Smile]

4. That LA article got posted on DU over and over and over again.

Ugghhhh.

I don't know how ugly the threads got though because I didn't bother clicking on them.

It was like the Washington Post article saying he wasn't going to try to limit corporate salaries/bonuses of companies who take TARP money. You could smell the bullshit. Other reporting along with Obama's own rant on the issue ran counter to it but someone, somewhere, anonymously leaks bullshit and papers print it. The White House did come out and say that Wash Post article was BS. No surprise there.

[merh]

5. I posted to one of the threads and posted the language from the

Jan 22 executive order that is quite clear.

This stupid spin just shows that too many people want to believe the worst and don't bother to think for themselves. That's why Hannity, Limbaugh and Beck can make so much money, they fill a void. Sadly, they fill it with lies and distortions.

[EFerrari]

7. I have a LOT of respect for Horton and very little for the LA Times but

I think it's too soon to draw conclusions. :shrug:

ETA: K&R for visibility.

[WillyT]

8. Kick !!!

:kick:

[WillyT]

9. Cool... Rachel's Got Horton On To Speak About This Tonight !!!

:woohoo: