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Torture memos and Bizarro World, cont'd

April 23, 2009 8:35 am ET by Eric Boehlert

We noted yesterday the oddity of the press turning the release of the scandalous Bush-era torture memo into a problem for the Obama administration. i.e. Process over substance.

Today, the AP breathlessly illustrates the peculiar trend:

Shifting rhetoric at the White House on prosecutions related to interrogation policies

And the lead:

A look at the White House's shifting rhetoric on the possibility of prosecutions stemming from CIA interrogation techniques against terror suspects.

The AP then unfurls a tick-tock look back from Sunday to Tuesday as it roots around with a what-did-they-know-and-when-did-they-know-it narrative of the Obama White House, not, y'know, the one that actually ok'd the law-breaking.

UPDATE: Slate dutifully publishes a piece (complete with timeline!) about what the torture memo story tells us about Obama's shortcomings. Bizarro World, indeed.

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    • Author by mk3872 (April 23, 2009 9:58 am ET)
         

      More obsession on munitia and process over actual criminal activity from our press. SHOCKING!

      I think the DC media is so trained to have a completely message-controlled administration the past 8 years where there was NO internal debate or opposing views allowed that their heads are exploding over this administration.

       

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    • Author by all your eyes (April 23, 2009 10:37 am ET)
         
      What I don't understand about this "flip-flop" business is, Obama has been consistent from the start on his position. There is nothing new here. He's always said, smartly, that he's more interested in looking forward, although he would potentially be receptive to the idea of a bi-partisan panel like the 9/11 commission. With regard to prosecuting Bush officials, again Obama has been very smart. He hasn't indicated that he prefers that route, and it would be very damaging if it appeared the president was driving a prosecutorial campaign against the former administration. It is essential that an independent fact-finding take place, and that any prosecutions be grounded solidly in fact, and based on the law. The president should minimize his role in this, as Obama has done. Where's the flip-flop? How can Obama's position be any more clear?
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      • Author by shaggles (April 23, 2009 11:30 am ET)
           
        Maybe that's the problem.  He's too smart.  The press don't like a smart President.  Look at their record over the past 30 years or so.  Reagan-Senile.  Dubya-just plain dumb.  They loved both of them.  Clinton & Obama-smart as they come and the press can't stand it.
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      • Author by NiceguyEddie (April 24, 2009 7:55 am ET)
           
        The press is used too used to reporting his (or any democrat's) position as being the over-simplified distortion of what his opponents make it out to be.  He lays a clear, but nuanced and principled position and the press goes to the oppoition to tell us what "he's really saying" and then they report that. 
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    • Author by Cartoon Messiah (April 24, 2009 8:22 am ET)
         

      Any investigation into torture of prisoners or the run-up to the Iraq War needs to include the heads of the newspapers and news networks that pimped said war and covered up said torture.

      These 'institutions' behave like the unpaid(?) propaganda arm of the Bush Administration. The editiors, producers and executives of these organizations should be on trial for treason.

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    • Author by DJNate (April 24, 2009 10:33 am ET)
         

      I would just like them to go back to 2002 and compare George Tennet's comments about a CIA briefing to what Madame Pelosi says about what the interrogation techniques were or weren't covered in that session.

      The minutes have to exist.  It would be a simple and clear way to start the investigation.

      Problem though, I just heard a report that Sandy Berger was seen entering the National Archives with baggy pants.

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