Rendition is not interrogation

Hullo, McFly, why do you think suspects are "rendered?" So they can be interrogated. Ay, chihuahua.

...is that "even" Tom Gjelten, as correspondent for NPR has a very condescending "I'm a 'real' journalist, and you're a lowly blogger and there are all kinds of things I can't even TELL you", attitude.

Way to stay after him, Glenn.

I have to give Gjelten some props for eventually backing down and admitting his mistake (though he did try to defend it). That's not something one sees very often. Of course, something like that looks pretty amazing relative to how the press really behaves, even if it's not something that spectacular when not compared to our current malfeasant media.

Well, at least Tom admitted he was wrong, which is a far cry from most of the "journalists" who cover these issues.

The good news is that we made a difference and the next guy they proffer for the job of director o' spooks will have to pass at least some "left wing" muster.

I have to give Gjelten some props for eventually backing down and admitting his mistake (though he did try to defend it).

Agreed.

Wow. Gjelten agrees that Brennan supported/advocated extraordinary rendition. And it is well-known that the entire reason the CIA uses extraordinary reason is that so the person so rendered can be tortured in a country that permits/winks at such torture. But he still disagrees that Brennan supported/advocated torture???

C'mon!

That was a helluvan interview, Glenn. Thank you for that. Grossman is far more optimistic than I, even though he's far better informed. Pleasantly disconcerting.

If OS comes through in any fashion (pulling the certs, f'rinstance) I'll have to stop being so derisive. Color me not too concerned that that will be the case.

Well done, Glenn.

It was clearly a tense conversation and I was impressed with the way both of you hung in there to carry it through. You're both clearly used to these kinds of interactions, and can keep your head in them.

It took a few minutes, but you eventually homed in on a core point: even Gjelten has to admit that Brennan defends rendition, and that "liberal bloggers" objected to his nomination because of this rather than simply because he was at the CIA when rendition was going on.

(Monday morning quarterback: I wish you would have asked Gjelten if he agreed that rendition is inextricable from torture. I can't see how he could deny that, and it might have deflated his patronizing a bit.)

The real test will be in Gjelten's future reporting. Will he change the way he talks about the Brennan controversy, nominations to the CIA, or about "liberal blogs?"

No need to speculate. We'll see.

Great to see you question Tom Gjelten and hold him accountable. Unfortunately, not only did Gjelten write an article on Wednesday, but he and NPR went on to broadcast his distortions on Thursday's Morning Edition (www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97785610). Will NPR broadcast a correction? I have my doubts.

Great to see you question Tom Gjelten and hold him accountable. Unfortunately, not only did Gjelten write an article on Wednesday, but he and NPR went on to broadcast his distortions on Thursday's Morning Edition (www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97785610). Will NPR broadcast a correction? I have my doubts.

In fairness, we did this interview yesterday afternoon, which would have been after that. NPR should at least mention this in the form of a correction.

Keep up your valuable blog.

Let's not go there, Glenn, because I would still question whether he was actually serving as an advocate for those programs. But let's not start--

This interview (of which I read the transcript) depressed me because Gjelten seemed to be defending people for no rational reason. Did I miss something?

I don't have a lot of time here so let me paste this:

Hold on, Glenn, because saying, for example, that useful information came from enhanced interrogation is the not the same as advocating those policies, because I've spoken to a lot of intelligence professionals who say, look, you can get useful information from these interrogation techniques; however, there's a cost and a benefit associated with this. The benefit is the information you get from it; the cost is the damage it does to America's reputation. So simply saying that these programs produced useful information does not make you a supporter of those programs.

Well, for God's sake, of course it does. Cost/benefit. And "the cost is the damage it does to America's reputation"? Christ. And worse, "so simply saying that these programs produced information does not make you a supporter of these programs."

Glenn, kudos for speaking with this fellow. I'm utterly depressed by the whole exchange and will now go visit family and try to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Well was that not very clever and devious of them? While a handful of states allow such appeals with wild abandon, the federal courts are most stingy with them (for reasons I think usually sound). They thought of everything in drafting that abomination, did they not?

The constitutional argument ought to prevail. Congress may not override the Constitution by statute. There is a serious 4th Amendment issue here (tho not totally decided by the courts where one party is foreign and the issue falls under rubric of "national security"), but now is the time when that ought be decided. No statute can or should be permitted to override the Constitution.

It is incredible that this journalist could not grasp the difference between accurately describing bloggers' criticism of Brennan vs. finding the criticism compelling. Did he actually read the blogs? He claims to have done so, but says he did not find any direct quotes from Brennan to back the criticism. He also tried a weaselly maneuver indicating that he was simply reporting what Brennan's take on the criticisms were, as opposed to say, what the actually criticisms were.