APPLYING THE ABD

NRO - TC ^ | 6/18/04 | Nick Schulz/KJL

[swilhelm73]

APPLYING THE ABD [Nick Schulz ] Aaron Brown says he consistently applies the eponymous doctrine. To bolster his case, he says “October 30, 2003, Newsnight and CNN aired a Saddam torture tape that sounds very much like the tape you describe.” This is where the Swiss cheese comes in.

It should be noted that Brown doesn’t address the primary charge: a bipartisan group of U.S. senators released a Department of Defense tape showing ritual torture and mutilation by the Hussein regime two weeks ago--a newsworthy event--and the mainstream media ignored it.

As one reader wrote to me regarding Brown: “Does he honestly think that one time on one night in October” is enough? Did Newsnight show picture of U.S. abuse at Abu Ghraib only one time? It’s a question of proportion. Writing earlier this week, Arnold Kling pointed out that “It would be one thing if there were an ongoing controversy over whether the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was appropriate, in which case congressional hearings and extensive public debate would be warranted. However, given that there is consensus that the treatment served no useful purpose and reflected sick behavior by the guards, it strikes me that the controversy is being used more to undermine our reconstruction effort than to improve it.” There is, as we all know, ongoing controversy over whether or not ending Saddam’s regime was morally justifiable. To that end, the release of the tape by U.S. senators was relevant and newsworthy.

Anyway, Brown’s a good guy… even if he doesn’t apply his doctrine consistently. It’s lunch time. A ham and Swiss on rye is sounding pretty good right now. Posted at 12:18 PM

ISN’T THIS NEWSWORTHY? [KJL] Another words or so about the Abu Ghraib torture tape Nick wrote about yesterday: A source who was involved in the process tells me it was actually made from a longer composite tape which lasts about an hour and a half. The source tells me: “The 3 and a half minute tape [the one NRO has] begins with a clip of a man with two hands standing and then continues through his operation and a shot of him in recovery with his stump bandaged. At the press conference in the Senate and at the AEI event [Deborah Orin wrote about this week], the person in question whose hand was amputated actually was a LIVE PARTICIPANT who sat and watched the clip of his own atrocity. Apparently the journalists in the room did not find this compelling.” That’s two public events this month now—how is it not a story? I just don’t get it. Posted at 01:49 PM