January 08, 2009

Editor’s Note: Tortured Coverage

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For a primer on how far the Fourth Estate has fallen, just tap CBS, Antonin Scalia, and YouTube into your favorite search engine. Then double-click play.

In a two-part segment that took up 30 of the network’s 60 Minutes on April 27, you can watch correspondent Lesley Stahl chill with the “brilliant,” “bold,” and “colorful” (her words) Supreme Court justice.

Scalia and Stahl stroll the rainy streets of Queens, New York, and, matching umbrellas in hand, rap about his humble upbringing. They climb the iconic steps of the court, where the 72-year-old “contrarian with a pugnacious temperament” reduces lawyers from “white-shoe law firms” to near tears. They even joke around in the halls of P.S. 13, where the future “maverick” says he “never got in trouble and got straight A’s too.” And, of course, the two spend a little face time in some set designer’s idea of a study, where the tough questions get asked.

“If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib . . . if you listen to the expression ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ doesn’t that apply?” Stahl queries.

“No, no,” Scalia replies. “Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so. What’s he punishing you for?”

Stahl: “Well, because he assumes you either committed a crime or you know something that he wants to know.”

Scalia: “It’s the latter. And when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you, you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for?”

Stahl: “Because he thinks you are a terrorist and he’s going to beat the you-know-what out of you.”

Scalia: “Anyway, that’s my view. And it happens to be correct.”

Then Stahl, in a voice-over: “He’s nothing if not certain and confident. How did he get that way?”

Cut back to the puffery.

On April 9 ABC News reported that officials in the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, sanctioned the CIA’s torture of top al-Qaida suspects. In a subsequent interview, President Bush acknowledged that he knew about and approved “enhanced interrogation” of detainees, including simulated drowning.

As I write, subpoenas are being issued by the House Judiciary Committee, which as you read should be engaged in a series of hearings examining the treatment of military prisoners in U.S. custody. Page one headlines and a gaggle of talking heads are sure to chronicle the spectacle.

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