Richard Cohen may have hit upon the journalistic equivalent of that proverbial "eureka moment." In his Tuesday piece, the Washington Post columnist raised the question that became the cyber equivalent of catnip for the political blogosphere: What if Dick Cheney was right?
"Sacrilege!" screamed the left. "Told you so," countered the right. As for the rest of us, well, we're left with both feet planted firmly in mid-air.
I suppose that Cohen's liberal pedigree insulates him somewhat from critics accusing him of being a toady for the Bush administration's treatment of detainees accused of being terrorists, sort of a Nixon goes to China defense. I say "somewhat" because the torture question has become a touchstone issue for opponents of the Bush administration.
What really got under their skin was Cohen's question whether Cheney's statements about the efficacy of waterboarding, beatings and other techniques euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation" might be true.
That ran against the growing conventional wisdom that harsh interrogation don't work very well. Keep someone in a stress standing position for two or three days over a period of months and they'll tell you anything to get some shut eye.
"Yet," Cohen said. "I have to wonder whether what he is saying now is the truth -- i.e., torture works."
Cohen had to expect the inevitable blowback-and it was not long in coming. At The American Prospect, Adam Serwer, ripped Cohen for being hopelessly muddle-headed about the topic.
"It really takes a startling lack of self-awareness to write a column about how you "know" that no longer torturing people has made America less safe, only to write another thumbsucking column a few weeks later innocently asking, "I have to wonder" whether torture works. Somehow, Richard Cohen can write several columns on the same topic without realizing he's contradicted himself. "
But Cohen's piece followed Sunday's "Face the Nation" interview with Bob Schieffer, where Cheney said that he knows of a couple of CIA memos supporting his argument that roughing up prisoners saved many lives.
"That's what's in those memos," Cheney said, adding that the documents refer "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped." - CBS News Story
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