[C]ontrary to Mitchell's suggestion that Blair supports the use of "the Bush policies" while Obama has "reject[ed]" them, according to the blog of the U.S. Naval Institute, in the April 16 letter that was sent "to the Intelligence Community workforce," Blair made clear he opposes the use of such techniques, which he called "graphic and disturbing."
(Emphasis supplied.) But Mitchell reported no such thing, and in fact, MM's truncated quote of Blair's statement about the techniques being "graphic and disturbing" is the real distortion. More . . .
MM, to its credit, later reports the actual words used by Mitchell:
MITCHELL: And the Obama administration's own director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote his employees last week that the interrogations produced high-value information. And he said he did not fault those who made the decisions at the time.
But Blair left those controversial comments out of public statements he issued at the same time. Tonight, a senior official told NBC News Blair does not back away from his private comments, even though they appear to differ from the president's rejection of the Bush policies. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
This report is not only accurate, it even underplays the real discord between President Obama and Blair. In fact, it is Media Matters who used truncated and misleading quotes to suggest Blair and Obama were on the same page. For example, MM, in its first reference to Blair's statement, in order to criticize Mitchell, truncates the following Blair quote:
Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director [Leon] Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future. I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given."
MM ignores Blair's statement that he does not "find fault" with the architects of the torture policy, which does indeed stand in marked contrast with President Obama's stated views:
What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy, even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when its expedient to do so....
Clearly President Obama, in marked contrast to Blair, does find fault with the architects of the torture policy. Moreover, unlike Blair, Preisdent Obama, especially when a candidate for President, categorically argued that torture was ineffective, in contradiction to Blair's statement that torture yielded high value information.
Media Matters, which does such invaluable work, damages its credibility here trying to criticize Mitchell for accurately reporting on the dissonance between President Obama and DNI Blair. It is shooting the messenger for accurately reporting the unpleasant message - Dennis Blair rationalized the torture policies of the Bush Administration. Bad work by Media Matters.
Speaking for me only
