Archive for April 25, 2009
Roll Call’s Emily Heil Fails Journalism 1.0
Emily Heil of Roll Call’s “Heard on the Hill” should take a refresher course in journalism. She appeared on MSNBC this morning and participated in a discussion about Dick Cheney urging the Obama administration to release classified CIA reports re “enhanced interrogation.” Heil said it was Cheney’s prerogative to do so because it,
goes to the heart of this debate, and that is, does torture work and does that matter?
Whether torture works, or not, is precisely the spin Cheney hopes “journalists” like Heil will buy.
Fact is, per U.S. and international law — (Google it) — torture, as in the kind of “enhanced interrogation” the Bush administration used, and is trying to justify — was and is illegal – and has been for decades. The world community hashed that out long ago. The question is, did George and Dick violate those pre-existing laws. Period. Torture, whether it works, and “does that matter,” has nothing to do with it.
It’s Hot, Already
It was 89º in Albany, New York today. What’s normal? 62º.
David Duke Kicked out of the Czech Republic
David Duke, the former leader of the KKK,
must leave the Czech Republic by midnight Saturday after he was detained on suspicion of denying the Holocaust.
Undoubtedly we’ll hear the wingers screaming about Duke just like they scream about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is also alleged to have denied the Holocaust. Then again, I wouldn’t hold my breath, hypocritical, two-faced opportunists that they are.
American Exceptionalism Seeps Into CNN Report on Swine Flu
(Updated below.)
At roughly 2:00 p.m. ET this afternoon, CNN’s senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen was on to report “the latest” on the Swine flu situation. She suggested that there might be a difference between the flu found in Mexico, with 1,000 victims and 60 deaths, and the flu found in the United States, with 8 victims – that would be 8 victims – and no deaths. She speculated that the U.S. strain might be milder because of the difference in the death rate between the two countries.
Tell me, how does comparing the death rate from 1,000 cases to the death rate from 8 cases lead to such a dramatic conclusion? Hey, maybe we will find that there are two (or more) strains but to suggest so at this point, based on such disparate circumstances, seems to me to be totally irresponsible and nothing but wild speculation.
One would hope we would get nothing but the facts during a situation like this. The last thing we need is for the media to start glossing things over, especially this early on. Just because we’re in the United States doesn’t mean that we’re special and the bugs that infect us are nicer than the bugs out there in the rest of the world, so let’s get rid of that notion ASAP.
