Interrogation Techniques

With the recently announced end of Fox's hit series "24," many liberal pundits are parading the show as a false depiction of the notion that "torture works." Contrary to their accusations, the Jack Bauer interrogation methods bear exactly zero resemblance to any actual interrogation techniques used by American military, law enforcement, or intelligence agents."On '24,' torture saves lives," the…

For almost a decade, American news readers have been presented with a litany of complaints from Old Europe regarding how the barbaric United States has surrendered its moral authority by introducing terror into the minds of suspected terrorists during interrogations. Even sleep deprivation and the playing of loud pop music have caused conniptions with these tender folk. So how are we to greet the…

On Monday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez painted Ann Coulter and CPAC as "hardline." Sanchez also implied that the CPAC attendees were hypocritically cheering Dick Cheney: "I invited Ann Coulter, who exemplifies the hardline spirit of CPAC...and asked her why anti-spend conservatives meeting there...would give a standing ovation to a former vice president whose administration ran up the…

Between its January 31 and February 20 reports on developments in the "interrogation memos" saga, the Associated Press may have learned a lesson in basic journalism from a NewsBusters commenter. I'll describe; readers can decide. The wire service's unbylined report three weeks ago opened with this paragraph: NB commenter "TE" took justifiable umbrage at that opening:

Former President Ronald Reagan would have prosecuted Dick Cheney for war crimes, Seth MacFarlane (IMDb page), creator, writer and executive producer of the Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show animated sit-coms which air Sunday nights on Fox, declared Friday night on the season premiere of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. But President Barack Obama, he rued, is too “chicken s**t” do…

New York Times columnist David Brooks says that what Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's David Gregory Sunday concerning the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City doesn't pass the laugh test."What Joe Biden said on ['Meet the Press'] today will be laughed at around the Arab world."Maybe even more shocking, speaking during the panel discussion segment that followed Biden's interview,…

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell went into an unhinged attack on a former Bush administration official Friday, and was eventually shut out of the discussion by Joe Scarborough.Appearing on "Morning Joe" with former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen who was brought on to discuss terrorist interrogation procedures, O'Donnell began by first calling him a liar, and then accused the Bush White House of…

Well if you can't win the propaganda war by twisting the content of something you don't like, you can at least plant a presumptive seed in the heads of those who will only see a story's headline. That seems to be the logic behind an unbylined Associated Press report this morning. Its headline ("Report: No sanctions for lawyers who OK'd torture") would tend cause anyone not reading further to…

Watching a dour Norah O'Donnell reporting from Senator-elect Scott Brown's exuberant victory bash in Boston, I half-expected O'Donnell to tell MSNBC's Rachel Maddow ... the mood here tonight is grim ...O'Donnell didn't quite say that, at least not publicly, though she did cough up this gem --O'DONNELL: Another interesting thing. You pointed out some of the odd things, talking about the…

Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and author of "Courting Disaster," blasted Christiane Amanpour for comparing American interrogation techniques to what the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia after the Vietnam War. Appearing on CNN International Wednesday, Thiessen took issue with Amanpour's April 2008 piece "Scream Bloody Murder" in which she made the case that waterboarding was…

The media has frequently made the deplorable decision to present prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as innocent choir boys, wrapped up in the evil that is a U.S. prison system run by blood thirsty prison guards. Such is the case of a recent piece by the BBC, covering a love-fest reunion between the former Guantanamo guard who has seen the light, repenting for his evil ways, and two ex-inmates whose only…

Unlike CBS and NBC, ABC on Wednesday night reported on criticism from the right of how President Barack Obama is addressing terrorism, but correspondent David Wright tried to discredit the critics' points by reacting with astonishment and sarcastic snipes. Astonishment: “Do you really feel like President Obama has made the country less safe?” Sarcasm: Rebutting former Bush speech writer Marc…

Managing Editor's Note: The following is a reprint of Michael Moriarty's original December 14 post to Big Hollywood. Moriarty, you may recall, played a prosecutor in the first few seasons of the long-running NBC drama "Law and Order."Well, I think I’ve been fairly calm and forgiving of "Law and Order" for about fifteen years. Living outside of the U.S. has certainly helped in more ways than one.…