To the editor:
The Tribune’s initial omission of the FBI torture report at the core of Senator Durbin’s protest got deserved Zorro-like rapier slashes in Reader headlines: “Tell ‘Em What to Think: But don’t tell ’em what they’re thinking it about” [Hot Type, June 24].
Now, to cover the political as well as journalistic dimension of this story, I suggest an article headed: “Daley Twists Knife: Dems leave Durbin twisting in wind, prisoners twisting in pain, terrorists twisting in delight, Obama twisting lips in silence.”
Such failures of the “opposition party” actually to oppose only make it easier for the administration to get away with the blatant hypocrisy of: (1) openly meditating torture, (2) releasing Brit Guantanamo prisoners (in a presumably minor favor to Tony the Lapdog) to go home and blab to the tabloids about tortures they experienced, (3) and then turn around to excoriate Democrats and the press for revealing torture practices.
Failing an opposition party, our only hope may lie in a Republican ticket of Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham (R., SC), who have not backed off in criticizing U.S. torture policies as incitements to terrorism, betrayals of Americanism, and exposure of American servicemen to retaliatory torture by future captors. (McCain also offers needed Senate leadership on global warming.)
Moe Shanfield
W. Hollywood