NPR: Not what you think it is

For decades, NPR has represented a supposedly liberal stance in their news reportage, and I have many liberal/progressive friends that listen to, and trust, it as the best source for news on the dial. Any look at their guest lists, however, let alone what those people are saying, will serve as a wake-up call belying that tradition and that reputation. Yesterday we heard yet more evidence of their capitulation to the forces of authoritarian right wing nuttery, during All Things Considered.
Host Alix Spiegel called upon Bryce Lefever to explain why he says the US torture of detainees is a good thing, and Lefever went even further--he said that the military psychologists employed to torture were patriots deserving praise. "I think the media ought to give us a big ol' thank you for our efforts on behalf of America," Lefever says. "There should be some recognition of the effort — the really extreme effort — that we've gone through to help."
That there are some freaks out there that believe this is not news, really. Republicans have been lauding torture in public for years now, from Smirky on down to Joe the Plumber. So why exactly would NPR sanction an interview like this one, given their reputation? The only answer I can come up with is that they are dropping even the pretense of being an objective news organization (which is itself a liberal construct) in favor of propagating right wing views at public expense. At no point during the interview, apparently, did Spiegel challenge or question Lefever's points, or qualifications, or even engage in any kind of dialogue whatsoever. This kind of stenography is the hallmark of right wing media as envisioned by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes when they launched Fox News Channel, initiating the final assault on objective news reportage.
NPR still contains wonderful niche programming--I love "Car Talk" and "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me"--and I'm willing to entertain the idea that there are some personalities on NPR that haven't sold out completely, but I'm afraid anyone listening to NPR for "the news" is, and has been for awhile now, deceived into thinking that they are well-informed from a centrist, much less a liberal, perspective. That the people hosting and guesting on most of the news shows seem sane and measured in tone merely reinforces what nickname watchful leftists and progressives use for it: Nice Polite Republicans.

Condi Rice: Frost/Nixon with a twist

The fact that Condi Rice has a gig at Stanford is sickening, but at least some students there are paying attention. In what appears to be a relatively informal gathering, (see video here) she took a rather pointed question about the definition of waterboarding and her role in Smirky's Administration's approval of torture. Clearly, Condi is not destined to be a press secretary, because instead of dodging or redefining the question, or simply ignoring it, she dropped this bomb:
"The United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture, and so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture." (emphasis added)
Now, I can't imagine anyone in Smirky's Administration did not see "Frost/Nixon", but if anyone did miss it, they had to have seen the ads for it, and if they managed to be so unaware as to miss those, too, they surely must be aware of the freaking Nuremburg Trials and their aftermath, right? Right!? Duhhhh.
Rice's "deft" admission to having committed war crimes is nothing less than the smoking gun needed to prosecute not just her (a gimmee, now), but also anyone remotely connected to this policy--"we were told", right?--especially Smirky and Dick, given that Rice specifically mentions presidential authorization.
"Paging Eric Holder, white courtesy telephone, please . . ."

From the sickening "Is this even news anymore?" file

The Smirky Administration approved the use of torture! The Washington Post is reporting that the White House gave explicit support to at least 2 CIA requests for approval of interrogation techniques that have been classified as torture, including waterboarding. Yes, most of the sane world already knew this. Yes, most of the sane world also knows that everyone in the Administration denied knowing about this, let alone approved it. We didn't believe them then, and now there's unadulterated proof that we were right.
Let's see if any of the insane, unpatriotic, or stupid worlds (read: those who still vote for Republicans) finally get that these people are simply evil and have been lying to us for the entire time they've been in the public eye. I'll be over here holding my breath . . .