Glenn Greenwald Breaks Down the Media's Silence on Detainee Abuse

Glenn Greenwald, as only he can, breaks down the way the media has turned a blind eye to the report coming out of the Senate Armed Services Committee pointing the finger squarely at the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld in particular as bearing the responsibility for detainee abuse. From Greenwald's post:

This Report was issued on Thursday. Not a single mention was made of it on any of the Sunday news talk shows, with the sole exception being when John McCain told George Stephanopoulos that it was "not his job" to opine on whether criminal prosecutions were warranted for the Bush officials whose policies led to these crimes. What really matters, explained McCain, was not that we get caught up in the past, but instead, that we ensure this never happens again -- yet, like everyone else who makes this argument, he offered no explanation as to how we could possibly ensure that "it never happens again" if we simultaneously announce that our political leaders will be immunized, not prosecuted, when they commit war crimes. Doesn't that mindset, rather obviously, substantially increase the likelihood -- if not render inevitable -- that such behavior will occur again? Other than that brief exchange, this Senate Report was a non-entity on the Sunday shows.

Instead, TV pundits were consumed with righteous anger over the petty, titillating, sleazy Rod Blagojevich scandal, competing with one another over who could spew the most derision and scorn for this pitiful, lowly, broken individual and his brazen though relatively inconsequential crimes. Every exciting detail was vouyeristically and meticulously dissected by political pundits -- many, if not most, of whom have never bothered to acquaint themselves with any of the basic facts surrounding the monumental Bush lawbreaking and war crimes scandals. TV "journalists" who have never even heard of the Taguba report -- the incredible indictment issued by a former U.S. General, who subsequently observed: "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account" -- spent the weekend opining on the intricacies of Blogojevich's hair and terribly upsetting propensity to use curse words.

Yeah its much more newsworthy to follow stories about brushes and profane wives than to cover actual war crimes committed by our elected officials. Meanwhile we have people trying to push a Bush legacy upon us that has no basis in truth. Conservative pundits claim that fifty years from now we will look back on Bush's presidency kinder than we do now. I say fifty years from now we very likely will still be trying to undo the harm he has inflicted upon our countries and others.

Liberal media bias my big fat arse!