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If you've come here from AAbshier's "Cheers and Jeers" this morning, the link provided was to Blast Off! itself rather than to the "rant" about David Gregory as intended. Here's the post you are looking for.

Hey, as long as you're here, why don't you plan to check out Blast Off! Radio at 4:00 Eastern this afternoon? It's fun and it's free ...

No, David Gregory: torture is NOT debatable

Exhibit no. 177 proving that the mainstream corporate media are anything but liberal: yesterday the host of NBC's Meet the Press, David Gregory held an online chat, and my question was chosen for him to answer. I asked (timestamped at 2:11), "Why is debating torture a 'crucial debate to have?' How exactly does it go beyond 'torture is illegal?' "

And here's the response I got from torture-apologist, Cheney-fellator Gregory:

[Sinfonian], because it is too easy to dismiss all these techniques as "torture." Were all the techniques torture? The debate to have is how do we treat our enemies in a new threat environment and can you defeat an enemy like this without compromising the values of the country?

Can there be any more blatant indication that Gregory is in the tank for the Bush crime syndicate? The one incontrovertible fact that he and his buddies on the Right seem to miss is that TORTURE IS ILLEGAL. Period. And there can be no legitimate argument against the fact that, for example, waterboarding IS torture. Indeed, the outcry against waterboarding and sleep deprivation and the other "techniques" used isn't whether or not they constitute torture -- of course they do. The "debate" actually is whether or not torture is permissible, and if so under what circumstances.

So, Gregory gets the issue exactly wrong. And because not only is torture morally wrong, it is not permissible under American or international law, there quite simply can be NO debate. The very fact that Gregory and his peers in the MSM have created this faux-debate out of whole cloth should make clear to all but the most obtuse observers that our media have abdicated their responsibilities as journalists and have become, in the truest sense of the word, propagandists of the worst kind.

Incidentally, I asked Gregory one other question that didn't get selected: "Have you ever considered being a contestant on 'Dancing With the Stars?' " I'm sure Dancin' Dave would be a big hit, given his brilliant 2007 performance with his pal Karl Rove (Gregory is, appropriately, to Rove's right in the video):

Another great moment in journalism. I mean, "journalism."