Pay no attention to the news stories suggesting that the White House caved in yesterday.
On the central issue of whether the CIA should continue using interrogation methods on suspected terrorists that many say constitute torture, the White House got its way, winning agreement from the "maverick" Republican senators who had refused to go along with an overt undoing of the Geneva Conventions.
The "compromise"? The Republican senators essentially agreed to look the other way.
In a section subtitled, "Questions the Press Should Ask", he writes (emphasis mine):
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. President Bush, for instance, yesterday called the program the "most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks."
Can he back that up? 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. It's imperative that the media give the public a better sense of whether Bush is credible on this issue.
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.
Here's another question reporters should be asking: Have the senators been assured that Vice President Cheney won't get Bush to attach a "signing statement" to this bill, asserting his inherent powers, as he did the last time he signed torture legislation?
Finally, 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.
A free people need a free press -- and a press that doesn't assert its freedom is just as bad as a state press.
Tags: news politics terrorism torture Bush Cheney propaganda human rights crime elections republican senate media
