I think you can go even further in tying the furious efforts to keep the "torture pictures" under wraps and the battle over language.

In a real sense, "torture" is a conclusion; the pictures are facts. (I know that other indisputable evidence exists; but such graphic evidence will completely change the public debate, which is why the pictures are being squelched.) As long as the facts are kept from us, it is possible to fuzz up the conclusion; as long as the conclusion is in dispute, it is possible to mute the demands for the facts. The flip side is that we can make progress on one by winning on the other. So by all means keep up the pressure, Glenn.

"[...](my amazement quickly dissipated once I recalled that this is the same institution that, until last year, paid Doug Feith -- Doug Feith -- to teach students "national security policy" and that Berkeley Law School has John Yoo "teaching law" to its students; next semester at Georgetown: Karl Rove teaches Civility in a Post-Partisan Age, Bill Kristol lectures on Accountability in Punditry, while David Gregory examines The Role of Intellect in Adversarial Questioning)."[...]

Are you certain that Amity didn't ghostwrite this section of you post?

..but they are bound to fall on deaf ears in the circles where people most need to be enlightened. Try to remember that we're talking about people who truly believe that the universe is just 6,000 years old, who deny global warming and think that evolution and Intelligent Design deserve equal time in the public school system. These are not people swayed by sound reasoning or incontrovertible facts. It's just not in their nature.

only slightly OT, but relevant to Blue Meme's torture picture post above, is that I just watched Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure." What is clearest from that movie is that not only were Lynddie England and the Abu Ghraib clan not merely "a few bad apples" they were barely apples at all (though none are completely innocent, Graner least of all). The real torture was done by others, whose identities are not yet known. The suppressed photos would likely reveal this more succinctly in a few glances than was accomplished by a 2hr documentary.

Here are a few more (from an earlier post from me):

"forceful extraction of information," "incentivizing the interviewee," "progressive persuasion," "confession coaxing."

Plus a new one that just came to mind: "fiendly persuasion."

When it comes to cooking up euphemisms, there is more than one way to appropriate a feline's integument.

Glenn, I think you missed the money quote from the Jim Lehr interview. Read it and weep:

"

JL: I mean, if somebody says — doesn’t matter if it’s the president or who —if somebody says, “It rained on Thursday,” and you know for a fact it didn’t rain on Thursday, if the person was of a nature that you felt you should quote him, “It rained on Thursday.” Second paragraph, third paragraph — or in television terms second or third sentence — you would say, “However, according to the weather bureau it didn’t [rain Thursday].” But you don’t call the person a liar. The person who would call that person a liar would be the person who’d read that story and say, “My god, Billy Bob lied.” But I’m not doing that. I’m providing the information so that the person can make their decision. People might say, “Well the weather bureau has lied. Or I was out that day and it was raining …”

LCB: Is there any place for writing, “Billy Bob said it rained Thursday. The weather bureau said it didn’t. I was out that day and I say it didn’t.”

JL: I would never do that. That’s not my function to do that.

"

Insane, somebody never learned about the concept of journalism. Lesson one for Lehr: the power of framing the debate.

Media Nation
By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
NPR ombudsman Shepard responds

NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard has responded to my item of last week in which I criticized her for defending NPR's policy of refusing to refer to waterboarding as "torture." She writes:

Yes, President Obama and AG Eric Holder have said that waterboarding was torture. I'd personally call it torture. But if you were an editor at the Globe, would you say that someone tortured another person? Or would you want to use a direct or indirect quote, i.e., "John Smith said the guard tortured him"?

I'm not trying to say what is and is not torture, but is every abuse classified as torture now or are there degrees? When a police officer throws a suspect to the ground and handcuffs them, is that torture or simply abuse?

Would it be better to, say, describe the technique and then say some call it torture? I do not think enhanced interrogation techniques is acceptable either. That's why I come down on describing the technique and adding that some call it torture...

[...]

NPR should not use enhanced interrogation techniques on the English language.

http://medianation.blogspot.com/2009/07/npr-ombudsman-shepard-responds.html

Dan Kennedy is an assistant professor at the Northeastern University School of Journalism.

..would have called Glenn out for pot/kettle-itis. Where, after all, are his own journalistic standards when this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the death of Michael Jackson? Shame on you Glenn for not devoting at least a week of your column exclusively to this vital story.

/snark

Great article Glenn, I highly recommend that anyone interested in the subject of torture who thinks there are "two sides" to this "controversy" listen to a speech by Sister Diana Ortiz that I heard on the Law and Disorder radio show on June 8, 2009. Hear the MP3 here (midway through):

http://lawanddisorder.org/2009/06/law-and-disorder-june-8-2009/

Sister Ortiz states that the missing voice in this so-called controversy is the voice of the torture survivor. She herself was tortured by Guatemalan govt and CIA operatives.

She is absolutely right. Her story and those of the survivors she works with should be told again and again, especially to "nice" people who do this "professional" journalism for our beloved country and all the "nice" people who profit from it's overseas torture policies.