"Oh, You Mean ***Those*** Secret Prisons"

Back when things were heating up about the Washington Post disclosure of "secret prisons" in Europe where the CIA spirited away "terrorists" for "interrogations", there was a weird sort of double-think going on in the US. On the one hand, "W" announced that there were no secret prisons, while the EU claimed that they believed that there were some although they couldn't name any in particular. On the other hand, "W"'s administration was talking about prosecuting journalists for breaches of national security. Which sort-of meant that "hey, we know that aren't supposed to be secret prisons, but really there are some, but, you know, we can't just say it, and journalists shouldn't either".

W seems to know how to best capitalize on human nature and cognitive dissonance in general. By releasing information in that way, media followers largely bought into the doublethink. Everyone said to himself "No, there aren't any secret prisions, but if there were some, then that would be OK." Which seems to explain the current media reaction on "W"'s declaration today that there are, after all, secret prisons, but they're OK, right?

Most of the articles that I've read in the US suggest that Europe was "comforted" by "W"'s admission.

At least CNN seems to have the real scoop.

The EU parliament's investigation's deputy leader, British Liberal Democrat Sarah Ludford, said Bush's admission "exposes not only his own previous lies. He also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition."

Other European MP's are not so "comforted" either:

"Kidnapping people and torturing them in secret, however tempting the short-term gain may appear to be, is what criminals do, not democratic governments," said Rene van der Linden, president of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, which conducted the investigation.

"In the long term, such practices create more terrorists and undermine the values we are fighting for," he said.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ... what, oh nevermind.

Rocky's Full Court Press -- Not Covered by the Press

If I weren't a regular reader of cursor then I wouldn't have come across this excellent video of Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City giving the Bush administration, the current congress and the American media a sound verbal thrashing. It's a thrilling video to watch. What's amazing is that it's coming from Salt Lake City -- I would never have imagined that the Mormon state would permit such defiant acts of political courage.

Rocky pulls no punches and gives everyone his share of criticism. He is especially critical of the US print media, including the local Salt Lake City journals, for not printing the corrections on their articles about WMD in Iraq until after the Iraqi invasion, at which point it was too late.

While Rocky doesn't ask for it, his speech clearly makes the argument for the impeachment of Bush. He does mention that Bush Sr. and Rumsfeld should be sharing the docket with Hussein for Human Rights Violations because they were complicit with Saddam during his gassing of the kurds. That's a strong note that I'm sure a lot of Americans are not ready to come to grips with.

I'm wishing this man the best ... and I'll have to keep my eyes open for him in the future.

My quick search of "Rocky Anderson" on news.google.com came up with few media stories outside of Utah. Clearly, the US media have not picked up on this, although it is very rare for the Mayor of the capital city to harangue the President while he is staying in the state overnight. It has probably never happened before, quite a powerful story, really, but Americans other than Utahns won't hear anything about it. Instead, they will get to see lots of stories about the arrest of a certain Utah polygamist, as if that were news.