Monday, March 16, 2009

"Torture" Now Available With Scare Quotes !

Remember the good old days of President Bush, when every allegation of torture, from foreign-based aid groups to the scuzziest terrorist fighter, where considered sancrosant and reported as due fact?

Well, Obama promised change, and the media is here to deliver it. Note the Reuters headline below (also used by the Washington Post):

Red Cross report describes "torture" at CIA jails

Now in Bush's day, those scare quotes (a pair of quotation marks used to emphasize a word or phrase, especially to express doubt OR to indicate that it is not the authors preferred terminology) were nonexistent, becuase we all know Bush was worse than Hitler and torture was how he got his tax cuts passsed, not to mention how he "protected" this nation...right?

But under Obama? This all ended the day he took his oath! Of course the headline writers at Reuters feel serious "doubt"! But just to make sure, let's throw in one more word that never appeared under the Bush administration:

The account of alleged physical and psychological brutality inside CIA prisons overseas also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," the newspaper reported.

Funny how, even thought these alleged acts took place while Bush was president, the media has now changed its way of reporting the story. Fear of accidentally smearing Obama, perhaps? Hey, better cautious then politically incorrect - let's dust off the scare quotes and hey - where did we leave the word "allegedly"? Someone look at the bottom of my desk drawer!

Change the media wants us - desperately wants us -to believe in.

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