On the Contrary

Just a short note as I work on Vine/Wine Friday:  The Press is finally being the press and it is a welcome surprise.  The Republicans have been out on one of their talking point drives trying to tamp down the outrage about their sactioned torture.  In the past the press has gladly lent their stage for these conservative talking points, but on the torture issue they are confronting these Republicans with a few facts that don’t quite jive with their story.  A case in point was yesterday’s Nora O’Donnell (MSNBC) interview with Liz Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Cheney.  Liz Cheney was spewing all the misinformation about torture and with the memos and other information we now know about what actually happened, Nora was able to point out most of the out right lies in the talking points or the failures in logic.  Later Lawrence O’Donnell was interviewed and he trashed the rest of the logic including the claims of preventing terrorist attacks.  On that one, the attack was prevented 6 months before we captured the terrorist they purported to have tortured to prevent the attack.  You can see all the interviews on the Daily Kos.

There was another interesting tidbit on the Olbermann show (Countdown MSNBC) when Keith was interviewing Chris Hayes the Washington Editor from the Nation Magazine about whether Nancy Pelosi had, as John Boehner claimed, known about what was going on (which she denied).  Chris said, “I am inclined to believe Speaker Pelosi over John Boehner, but I don’ really care from a partisan standpoint, who sign off on all this.  Let it all be brought to light.  If it were the case that there were Democratic law makers who knew what was happening and gave it the thumps up whether tacit or explicit, we should know about that…” This is the primary difference between Democrats and Republicans.  They are protecting their own at all costs, most Democrats are standing up for a principal that torture is immoral.

So here is a hearty thank you to Nora O’Donnell and we hope the beginning of a new chapter in Press coverage where instead of just letting the pundit spout his talking points, the interviewer is well enough prepared to raise critical questions about them instead of just moving on to the next question, letting the false claims go unchallenged, and lending credibility to them.  I would love to see the same type of interview about the economy or energy.  It truly would be a new day