May
09
2011

Sunday Morning Torture

It's bad enough that corporate media are having such an ill-informed debate about whether torturing some prisoners helped find Osama bin Laden. But considering whom the media invite to this debate, it's probably not a surprise. Take yesterday's Sunday shows (please!). On NBC's Meet the Press, Obama national security adviser Thomas Donilon basically refused to take a definitive position on torture, waterboarding and intelligence. "No single piece of intelligence led to this," was his line. They followed up with a segment with former CIA head Michael Hayden and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom basically endorsed the idea that torture worked. [...]

Feb
15
2011

NYT Nails Donald Rumsfeld!

The New York Times stuck it to the former Defense secretary in a Sunday magazine interview: People sometimes call you a war criminal. Does that bother you? For the record, Rumsfeld did seem slightly bothered, because it's "totally untrue. And life goes on."

Nov
24
2008

Who Gets to Speak: Iraq, Afghanistan and the NY Times

The New York Times' Week in Review section yesterday (11/23/08) gathered a group of op-eds under the heading "Transitions," which they described as "a series of Op-Ed articles by experts on the most formidable issues facing the new president." The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the topics under examination; we've examined who gets to weigh in on such matters before. The Times yesterday ran seven pieces. Readers were treated to the thoughts of ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi (who, you might remember, peddled many of the false stories about Iraqi WMD) and leading [...]