If it’s Sunday, it’s GOP Beltway PR

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I stopped watching the Sunday morning political talk shows some time ago because the media villagers and Beltway bloviators are so completely out of touch with reality which exists outside of their protective Beltway media bubble.

For example, what was the biggest news story last week? C'mon, you know the answer. That's right, the successful American raid into Pakistan to kill the most wanted terrorist and mass murderer in the world, Osam bin Laden. Mission actually accomplished.

Now if you were the producer of "Meet The Gregory," or "Face Bob Schieffer," or "This Week with a cast of WaPo clowns," etc., who would you have booked for Sunday's program? Since you are all infinitely smarter than the actual producers of these programs, you would have booked one of the individuals sitting around this table – because they actually have information relevant to the successful mission.

Well, not if you are a Washington, D.C. media villager or Beltway Bloviator. The Sunday morning talk shows belong to the Republican Party and their water-carriers in the right-wing noise machine conservative media. It has been this way for years.

Instead of booking the individuals in the photo above, the producers of the Sunday morning talk shows booked the architects and apologists for the Bush administration's illegal torture program to claim that their illegal torture program led to actionable intelligence that led to Osama bin Laden and, therefore, The Bush administration should receive all the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Riiight.

When it comes to this booking decision, Rachel Maddow asks the right question: "WHY?"

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First, everything I have read and heard in the media about the actual intelligence process involved in locating Osama bin Laden refutes the torture apologists' claim that actionable intelligence was derived from illegal torture.

Secondly, if actionable intelligence had been produced from said torture (which allegedly had ended by 2004), why did it not lead to the location and capture or death of Osama bin Laden at that time years ago? As one analyst described this, torture apologists are taking two unrelated data points and extrapolating ad infinitim to make the claim of continuity and connectivity. Now that is some tortured logic.

Finally, illegal torture is illegal under U.S. law, international law, and treaties to which the U.S. was the principal architect. There are no "the ends justify the means" exceptions. Torture has been illegal since George Washington's Continental Army and remains so today. It is a heinous crime for which the principal architects of the illegal toture program should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and illegal torture apologists should be roundly condemned for their un-American views. "Americans do not torture." Period.

And yet the media villagers and Beltway bloviators gave the architects and apologists for the Bush administration's illegal torture program a platform on Sunday to claim that the illegal torture program led to actionable intelligence that led to Osama bin Laden, with little or no push back from the program hosts or, more importantly, with no reality check from the Obama administration officials actually involved in the mission who were not even invited to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows.

Which begs the obvious question, "why do the media villagers and Beltway bloviators so readily embrace illegal torture?" Or is this really about revisionist history to rewrite the failures of the Bush administration and to improve his legacy in history? And an attempt to validate an illegal torture program, i.e., the ends justify the means, in a bid to head off prosecutions for illegal torture and war crimes?

The media villagers and Beltway bloviators are supposed to be impartial and objective reporters of the news. Instead, they are nothing more than the PR firm for the Republican Party.