Clove
05-06-2009, 07:37 PM
Media Ignores Obama Error on Torture
Maureen Dowd's NYT column yesterday confirmed what I had suspected: The mainstream media is either oblivious to the fact that President Barack Obama was wrong about a major point he made during last Wednesday's press conference -- or they are simply refusing to report it.
Either way, it is worth noting.
Regarding President Obama's comments on torture, Dowd wrote,
As Mr. Obama said in his news conference, it is in moments of crisis that a country must cleave to its principles. Asserting that "waterboarding violates our ideals," he said he had been struck by an article describing how Churchill would not torture prisoners even when "London was being bombed to smithereens."
"And the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts and over time, that corrodes what's best in a people," he said. "It corrodes the character of a country."
This line, of course, was one of Obama's strongest moments ... The trouble is, as several blogs noted days ago, it was totally false. Regardless of what Prime Minister Churchill might have said, Britain did, in fact, torture ... that is, if you believe the The Guardian.
This, of course, is not to say that waterboarding is torture, or that torture effective or ineffective. It is, instead, to say that Barack Obama was apparently wrong about a historical fact (it turns out, he apparently got his info from reading an Andrew Sullivan blog).
... Perhaps even more interesting than Obama's mistake is that, judging by Dowd's column, the MSM has failed to report on it -- and is, in fact -- perpetuating the myth.
Keep in mind The Guardian column is now three years old -- and the blogs on the topic were published almost immediately after Obama's comments. One of the blogs reporting was TIME's The Swampland (yes -- technically they are the MSM) -- so it's not as if these were obscure blogs. And it's also worth noting that Obama's comments on this topic were among his most poignant. They were also meant to be used as a way to criticize the Bush Administration.
To me, it comes down to this; Either the mainstream media has failed to investigate whether or not Obama's claim during a nationally-televised press conference was accurate -- or they know he was wrong and are simply failing to set the record straight.
I can't decide which is worse ...http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/05/04/obamas-torture-mistake-ignored-by-media/
Discuss.
Maureen Dowd's NYT column yesterday confirmed what I had suspected: The mainstream media is either oblivious to the fact that President Barack Obama was wrong about a major point he made during last Wednesday's press conference -- or they are simply refusing to report it.
Either way, it is worth noting.
Regarding President Obama's comments on torture, Dowd wrote,
As Mr. Obama said in his news conference, it is in moments of crisis that a country must cleave to its principles. Asserting that "waterboarding violates our ideals," he said he had been struck by an article describing how Churchill would not torture prisoners even when "London was being bombed to smithereens."
"And the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts and over time, that corrodes what's best in a people," he said. "It corrodes the character of a country."
This line, of course, was one of Obama's strongest moments ... The trouble is, as several blogs noted days ago, it was totally false. Regardless of what Prime Minister Churchill might have said, Britain did, in fact, torture ... that is, if you believe the The Guardian.
This, of course, is not to say that waterboarding is torture, or that torture effective or ineffective. It is, instead, to say that Barack Obama was apparently wrong about a historical fact (it turns out, he apparently got his info from reading an Andrew Sullivan blog).
... Perhaps even more interesting than Obama's mistake is that, judging by Dowd's column, the MSM has failed to report on it -- and is, in fact -- perpetuating the myth.
Keep in mind The Guardian column is now three years old -- and the blogs on the topic were published almost immediately after Obama's comments. One of the blogs reporting was TIME's The Swampland (yes -- technically they are the MSM) -- so it's not as if these were obscure blogs. And it's also worth noting that Obama's comments on this topic were among his most poignant. They were also meant to be used as a way to criticize the Bush Administration.
To me, it comes down to this; Either the mainstream media has failed to investigate whether or not Obama's claim during a nationally-televised press conference was accurate -- or they know he was wrong and are simply failing to set the record straight.
I can't decide which is worse ...http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/05/04/obamas-torture-mistake-ignored-by-media/
Discuss.