Gray Lady proves Rove right. -O-

NRO ^ | 6/27/05 | David Frum

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

An editorial in Saturday's NYT denounces as "cynical" Karl Rove's observation that (in the NYT's paraphrase): "conservatives and liberals had different reactions to 9/11." It continues: "Let's be clear: Americans of every political stripe were united in their outrage and grief, united in their determination to punish those who plotted the mass murder and united behind the war in Afghanistan, which was an assault on terrorists."

Oh if only that were true. But the NYT itself is daily crammed with evidence that Rove is right and that the NYT editorialists are wrong. Take for example this story, which appeared on the front page, upper left hand corner of Friday's paper. Here's the lede:

"Military doctors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have aided interrogators in conducting and refining coercive interrogations of detainees, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears, according to new, detailed accounts given by former interrogators."

And it continues:

"The accounts shed light on how interrogations were conducted and raise new questions about the boundaries of medical ethics in the nation's fight against terrorism."

You might well wonder: what questions could this story possibly raise? What on earth could be wrong with the military using psychologists to help it figure out how to interrogate more effectively? Or - to be more specific - how on earth could even the NYT possibly find this use of psychologists objectionable? The interrogations in this case after all involve terrorists captured in Afghanistan, the war that the NYT tells us it unequivocally supports. The psychologists were not involved in any alleged abuse or maltreatment of prisoners.

Yet the paper gives prolonged and highly visible credence to complaints that "there was no way that psychiatrists at Guantánamo could ethically counsel interrogators on ways to increase distress on detainees." How, how, how?

Hold your jaw in your mouth with both hands and listen:

"Several ethics experts outside the military said there were serious questions involving the conduct of the doctors, especially those in units known as Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, BSCT, colloquially referred to as 'biscuit' teams, which advise interrogators.

"'Their purpose was to help us break them,' one former interrogator told The Times earlier this year."

In other words: in the view of the NYT's favored experts, and of those editors who adjudged this story worth of the most prominent spot on A-1, it was the very act of extracting information from terrorist detainees that was morally problematic.

And that's why conservatives like Karl Rove express doubts about the liberal commitment to the war on terror.

Now - just to complicate things - let me add one more point. It is also true that the war on terror is likely to last a long time. It's true too that success in this war will require the United States government to take actions that it has never taken before. In the book I cowrote with Richard Perle, An End to Evil, we recommended for this reason that the administration should work with Congress to write a formal legal code governing its anti-terror operations. Instead, the administration has tried to run the legal aspects of the war on pure executive fiat. That's bad policy - and over the long haul it has proven to be if possible even worse politics. Rather than split moderate, war-fighting Democrats away from legalistic, pacifistic liberals, this high-handed approach has tended to push potential war supporters into a dangerous alliance with weak-willed or actively anti-American war opponents on the far left.

That I think is the real meaning of Sen. Durbin's outburst on the Senate floor. Yes it was an appalling, outrageous, and utterly false thing to say. But if Durbin's words were a moral disaster, the fact that the United States has lost a senator to such madness is bad news for everyone.

So while many liberals are behaving just as badly as Karl Rove, it's worth a moment's thought to consider whether there might not be things that the administration responsible for waging and winning this war could be doing better to hold together its war-fighting coalition. It's not enough to shrug and say, "Well that's just the way liberals are." The governing conservative majority should be acting in such a way as to deprive liberals of any excuse for being that way. That unfortunately has not been done. So there's failure and blame enough for all: moral failure on their side; political failure on ours.

[Brilliant]

I'm not sure if I require any of the liberals telling us that terrorists needed "therapy."

I do remember them telling us that we needed therapy. Remember the line, "Ask yourself why the world hates you."

A conservative did not concoct that line.

[RobFromGa]

It's not enough to shrug and say, "Well that's just the way liberals are." The governing conservative majority should be acting in such a way as to deprive liberals of any excuse for being that way. That unfortunately has not been done. So there's failure and blame enough for all: moral failure on their side; political failure on ours.

So Frum wants us to appease the liberals? First he doesn't like Bush's inaugural speech, then he's a contributor to Huffington's blog, now he wants us to appease the liberals?

For a man who penned "axis of evil", Frum is getting pretty wimpy.

[theDentist]

Go tell Aunt Hillary
Go tell Aunt Hillary
Go tell Aunt Hillary
The Old Gery Lady's dead.

[Salvey]

The governing conservative majority should be acting in such a way as to deprive liberals of any excuse for being that way.

Nope, won't, can't happen. The conservative majority are genetically wired to act like losers.

[carrier-aviator]

I don't get it. Hillary denies she is a liberal. So does Monsieur Kerry. Virtually every Democrat refuses to acknowledge the label "liberal."

So, why were the Dems so upset over Rove's words?

We all know the answer of course: the Dems are "liberals" but they know that to get elected they must hide this fact.

Rove did a great job of exposing these closet cases. Kudos to him.

[Zeroisanumber]

Yet the paper gives prolonged and highly visible credence to complaints that "there was no way that psychiatrists at Guantánamo could ethically counsel interrogators on ways to increase distress on detainees." How, how, how?

Violation of the Hippocratic Oath. The military should make use of Psychologists, not Psychiatrists.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib.

[phil1750]

Violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

And beheading, suicide bombs, planes into buildings, etc. is ok? Sorry, I have no sympathy at all for terrorist being held in prisons. Panties on the head is not cruel and unusual punishment to me. In fact, I have heard NOTHING that upsets me concerning these slime-of-the-earth terrorist prisoners except the better-than-they deserve treatment they are receiving.

[eyespysomething]

The governing conservative majority should be acting in such a way as to deprive liberals of any excuse for being that way. That unfortunately has not been done. So there's failure and blame enough for all: moral failure on their side; political failure on ours.

Ain't it the truth!

[MortMan]

The Hippocratic oath was done away with a number of years ago, as I understand the situation.

Besides, advising how to increase stress is NOT the same as advising how to harm someone, provided that the stress is not terminal, nor unrecoverable.

[Zeroisanumber]

The Hippocratic oath was done away with a number of years ago, as I understand the situation.

I know you're being ironic, but I also know docs who would punch you in the eye for making that joke. Which in itself would be a kind of irony, moreso if you were a patient of theirs.

Besides, advising how to increase stress is NOT the same as advising how to harm someone, provided that the stress is not terminal, nor unrecoverable.

I suppose that it's all in the interpretation of "do no harm", but I guarantee you that these military docs are going to have some career trouble after they leave the armed forces.

In any event, why bother with MD's who might have qualms about the job when there are PhD's who will serve just as well without the bellyaching?

[MortMan]

Actually, I'm not being Ironic. A doctor I know told me that the Hippocratic oath is no longer taken, and I have had no reason to doubt it.

Just my $.02

[LexBaird]

And so Frum commits, in his last paragraph, the same error that the Libs do. We must look deeply into what WE did wrong to cause the Left to hate us so much!

Instead of navel-gazing, we should be attacking harder. We should be running TV spots with sound bites of Kennedy, Shumer, Durbin, Reid, Pelosi et. al. , showing their vicious statements over and over, with the tag line of "Your Democrat Leadership At Work." They want to demand Rove's apology? How about spots showing verbatim quotes proving his point? Add the tag, "Is This The Democratic Party You Thought You Belonged To?" and run it in every heavy Union town in the Rust Belt.

[expatpat]

The term "liberal" used here is itself a major distortion. In historical terms, and still in the rest of the world, "liberal" meant/means the almost the direct opposite of "socialist". Here, the socialists hijacked the term, to hide under, since Americans will not vote for socialists. However, now the have soiled that nest, and are looking for new cover.

[expatpat]

......However, now they have soiled that nest, and are looking for new cover.

[tallhappy]

I do remember them telling us that we needed therapy.

Yes. That is what it was about. We respond with therapy -- for us to get over it.