Jacqueline Marcus: Andrea Mitchell's Defense of Dick Cheney's Torture Orders

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus

I want to begin this commentary by saying farewell to our Lion, Senator Ted Kennedy, who will be immensely missed with sadness…

***

If you listened to Andrea Mitchell's report of the CIA torture documents last night on the NBC Nightly News, you'd never know that the Bush Administration authorized orders to practice heinous crimes of torture on the detainees, as today's The New York Times article points out -- there were no "bad apples" at a lower level. The Bush White House gave direct orders to torture with the stamp of approval from Bush's Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

However, the message from Mitchell's report was a defense of Dick Cheney's claim that "torture works," according to Mitchell, "there is evidence that these enhanced interrogation methods may have saved American lives…"

The CIA report, though mostly redacted for reasons that must shock the conscience to put it lightly, should have been a flashing neon BUSH WHITE HOUSE in CRISIS 24/7 headline news story. Instead, it's being swept quickly under the filthy corporate media carpet. It's absolutely stunning to finally see hard-core evidence, proving that torture was not only authorized by Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and others working in the Bush Administration, but also it was an "order" to do so.

Andrea Mitchell diminished the report by devoting airtime to Cheney's defense. I suppose she'll call this "balanced and fair news."

First, when the media justifies torture by claiming that it's a "debate" that there are two sides, it's morally disgusting -- as disgusting as saying that there are two sides to the Holocaust.

By giving torture "credibility" as Mitchell did, then anything goes, right? Will Andrea Mitchell argue that raping and slaughtering the detainee's child in front of the father can be justified because it may have saved American lives?

We expect this sort of demented, nihilistic version of defending the worst, immoral, unconscionable crime (torture) a person can inflict on any creature be it humans, children, animals, at FOX. But I held higher expectations from Andrea Mitchell. Let me remind her that the act of torture makes the human race the most despicable species that ever walked the face of this earth.

But the worst part of Mitchell's coverage of the CIA torture report was her conclusion. To paraphrase: "…this CIA report is bound to raise questions and problems for the Obama White House."

EXCUSE ME!!!??? The Obama White House?! Oh, but it doesn't raise questions, headaches or problems for the Bush White House. I see.

Andrea Mitchell concludes that the controversy will swirl around the Obama Administration instead of the Bush Administration; the problem of the release of the Bush White House "orders to torture" begin and end with the Obama Administration. In other words, a threat from the corporate media to Obama: Drop it! or else…

Later that same evening, I watched Keith Olbermann's coverage on MSNBC of the CIA torture report in which the Bush White House's unlawful crimes of torture were discussed -- and it was as if there were two entirely different stories: Mitchell's defense of Cheney vs. Olbermann's revelation of the facts/horrors committed by the Bush Administration.

Once again, the MSM is covering up for the Bush Administration's high crimes and misdemeanors, which makes the media reporters just as culpable and despicably immoral as the Bush criminals in high office, if not more so.

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Brief Bio: Jacqueline Marcus' poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Ohio Review, The Antioch Review, The Journal, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry International, Hotel Amerika, The Delta Review, The American Poetry Journal and more. Her book of poems, Close to the Shore, was published by Michigan State University Press. Her political essays have been published at CommonDreams.org and BuzzFlash.com. She taught philosophy at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, California, and is the editor of http://www.ForPoetry.com. She is currently promoting green technologies (solar & wind) on the island of Maui. www.GoSolarMaui.com.

Technorati Tags: Guest Commentary Jacqueline Marcus Andrea Mitchell torture Dick Cheney