Good for John McCain for admitting that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" permitted under the Bush administration are torture. However, as honest as Senator McCain is, the major newspapers (NYT and WashPost) in the country are still hiding the word torture with clever euphemisms.
On Saturday a Washington Post article discussed how the above mentioned techniques produced vital information regarding national security. Yet in discussing this issue the authors of this article describe the torture as "coercive methods." What are these journalist so afraid of that they cannot call torture torture? When discussing the recent riots and protests in Iran you can bet that these newspapers and journalist call the arrest and violent interrogation of protesters torture.
The problem today is that newspapers are no longer controlled by private ownership. They are owned by giant media conglomerates that are publicly traded companies whose ownership is tightly tied to politicians that they are unwilling or afraid to denounce the actions of the bed mates. This business model has destroyed the independence of the editors and journalist to call into questions the action of the government. As Jefferson stated, "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, 1787.
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