The Spin is All That Matters

Tonight on NPR I heard the most unbelievable Op-Ed piece by conservative columnist, radio personality, Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow and for eight years, Newt Gingrich's Press Secretary, Tony Blankley. Commenting on the CIA's destruction of its videotapes of waterboarding torture, he proudly declared that "Finally, the CIA did something right" by preventing the inflammatory videotapes from falling into the hands of YouTube or Al Jazeera. He went on to say what an "incubus" of a PR disaster its general distribution would have been because it would harm "our" efforts to "win the hearts and minds" of the Muslim world.

I could not believe my ears. No words of dismay or outrage about the fact that the CIA has been torturing people from Mr. Blankley. No, in today's America, according to the mouths of reactionaries such as he, the good thing is that the video evidence of these heinous acts has been destroyed. And NPR had the temerity to run such monstrous talk.

Is this the ultimate in spin? It doesn't matter, according to Mr. B, that our government has been torturing people. No, what matters is that the most inflammatory evidence of said acts, the most dramatic proof and footage of their existence, has been eliminated. The Muslim world won't know the difference, or so Mr. B thinks. What contempt for truth. What contempt for the Muslim world - that they wouldn't be offended and inflamed by the knowledge - a fact that the Muslim world has known for years already - that the U.S. government and military torture people. What contempt for Americans that he thinks such twisted logic can convince Americans not to rise up against this regime and send it to the Hague!