Stephen Colbert gave a good dose of ridicule to some of our “favorite” Fox News pundits last night when he lampooned the media coverage of the torture report.
The Foxies getting a comedic one-uppance from Colbert were Eric Bolling, “Punchy” Andrea Tantaros, Steve Doocy, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the “brown-haired guy who isn’t Steve Doocy,” aka Brian Kilmeade. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer also got a well-deserved mocking.
Colbert summed it up beautifully when he said, “As journalists, it is our sacred duty to face those in authority and ask, ‘Should we really know this?’ The point is, I don’t want to learn what’s in this report.”
But unlike Fox News hosts, Colbert went on to discuss exactly what’s in the report with a real expert, Tom Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Since you won’t likely see such a substantive discussion on Fox anytime soon, I’m including that video, too.
Watch it below, from last night's The Colbert Report.
It was so refreshing to get the take of a person who read the document with the mindset of an analyst (not an apologist). As was done after WW2, prosecutions are in order and the claim that one was only following orders should not be admitted in court. That said, the prosecutions should start at the top and wilful ignorance should not be an excuse either.
I also agree with the many observers who insist that the crux of the matter is not whether or not the techniques were “effective” but rather the total unadulterated immorality of presenting their use as even remotely acceptable under American law. Even Saint Ronnie was against torture and John McCain speaks from personal experience. Two voices in the desert? Seems not, actually.
The fact that so many CIA operatives put their protests down in writing to their superiors is doing a lot to restore a reputation that had taken a huge beating during the Bush administration when a whole slew of immoral approaches once attributed to the detested “commies” were adopted. The fact that none were actually interviewed by the commission is actually irrelevant IMO: it took a lot more courage to write those memos than it would have taken to testify under oath.
Anyway, the image conveyed by the likes of Cheney and Rumsfield was that Americans were quaking so badly in their boots that they would give up everything they (should or claim they) hold dear in order to be able to attend the next 4th of July barbecue. Some were/are, of course and they’re the ones who bluster and brag the most when it’s safe do do so but run for the hills as soon as somebody bigger steps in. They are bullies. “We the puny” need to join together to demand that the perpetrators of this black page in world history be prosecuted.
That’s the American way as it was understood before the GWB administration decided to rewrite the Geneva convention, several anti-torture treaties and even the US Army manual.