Dramatic evidence surfaced this week that Dick Cheney ordered the torture of detainees   to force them to say that there was an Iraq and al-Qaeda connection in order to justify the administration’s decision to go to war. Despite this explosive revelation surfacing a number of   mainstream news organizations have shown a reluctance to give this issue its appropriate coverage. Notably CNN’s line up of cable-news shows have chosen to focus their reporting on the controversy between Pelosi and the CIA, and totally ignore the Cheney alleged war crimes.   
 
Over the weekend, CNN’s new-show  lineup of Anderson Cooper’s 360, John King’s State of the Union, Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources, chose to focus on the Nancy Pelosi dispute with the CIA and ignore the Cheney revelation. In the case of John King, the only aspect of the torture question he dealt with was to bring in House Minority leader John Boehner and ask him if he agreed with Newt Ginrich’s call for Pelosi’s resignation, which he didn’t.  Anderson Cooper likewise chose to focus on the Pelosi dust-up on his show.

Howard Kurtz, host of CNN’s weekly program Reliable Sources, which devotes its hour to taking a critical look at the media, totally ignored the dismissal of the Cheney story by the other CNN news shows and did them one better by also not covering the scandal. Instead Kurtz found a far more "important media” subject in which to allocate a solid fifteen minutes--Muriel Hemmingway. Kurtz turned into an unabashed groupie doing a piece which was memorable for its irrelevancy to the Reliable Sources concept. Among the sweet little nothings that Howard shared with Ms. Hemmingway and his audience  was that he follows her on “Twitter.”

For these CNN news shows to prioritize the Pelosi CIA dust-up while ignoring the revelation that the vice-President ordered torture to get false confessions connecting Iraq and Al Qaida is telling. However in the case of Jim Acosta of CNN, he took it to another level. There’s lying by omission and or commission, Acosta managed to combine the two.

Acosta completely misreported, announcing on his news show that Liz Cheney "shot down" the claim that harsh interrogations conducted in 2002 were aimed at "discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda," actually when Stephanopoulos put the direct question to Liz Cheney she dodged the question and changed the subject when asked about an allegation that, in 2003, her father's office suggested an Iraqi detainee be water-boarded to obtain evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link. We reprint the Media Matters for America’s analysis and report of this Liz Cheney dodge, which was headlined;
Acosta credits Liz Cheney with having "shot down" torture allegation, when in fact she dodged key question: May 18th 2009 6:43 PM ET
ACOSTA: But even as Republicans are trying to turn the torture tables on Democrats, liberals are reaching to turn them back.
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL (The Nation editor): The next big controversy is the mounting evidence showing that torture was used to extract evidence, to create a link -- a false link -- between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
ACOSTA: Bush administration critics point to Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. On the website The Washington Note, Wilkerson says in early 2002, harsh interrogation was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S., but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda -- a charge Dick Cheney's daughter shot down.
LIZ CHENEY: I think that it's important for us to have all the facts out. ... [T]his was an important program. It saved American lives.
ACOSTA: As for Speaker Pelosi, Republicans acknowledge they don't have the votes to remove her, but all of the finger-pointing is renewing calls on Capitol Hill for an independent truth commission on torture, something the White House says it does not want -- John.
But during the exchange on the May 17 broadcast of This Week from which the Vanden Heuvel and Cheney clips were taken, Cheney was also asked -- by Stephanopoulos -- to respond to allegations of actions specifically taken by Vice President Cheney's office in 2003:
VANDEN HEUVEL: [Y]ou said, George, that the next big controversy is Guantanamo. The next big controversy is the mounting evidence showing that torture was used to extract evidence to create a link -- a false link -- between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida. That is a crucial area of investigation and another reason --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me just explain to the viewers what Katrina is -- a little more context in what she's talking about.
There were some reports this week that the vice president's office, actually, back in 2003, in April of 2003, I believe, sent some sort of word to Iraq that a detainee in custody should be water-boarded in order to get information to establish whether there was a connection between Iraq and Al Qaida, or more information on weapons of mass destruction -- your response.
Acosta did not mention Stephanopoulos' question, which appeared to refer to a May 13 Daily Beast article by former NBC News investigative producer Robert Windrem, who reported that in 2003 "the vice president's office suggested water-boarding an Iraqi prisoner who was suspected of knowing about a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam."
Purporting to respond to Stephanopoulos, Liz Cheney said: "On this particular allegation, you know, nobody who's talking about this in the press has any knowledge of specific detainee treatment. And you saw the CIA yesterday come out and say, absolutely unequivocally, water-boarding was not used to establish this kind of a link." Cheney did not refute the specific allegations of actions taken by the Vice President's office that Stephanopoulos and asked about. Stephanopoulos then asked her again to respond to the allegation he had raised:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But I want to press one thing there, because there was a report -- no, but you've explained one part of it. I just want to ask you to explain another part of it: the report, though, that the vice president's office did ask specifically to have information about Iraq-Al Qaida connections presented to this detainee. Do you deny that?
In her response, Cheney did not deny or "shoot down" the allegation made in Windrem's article and instead shifted to attacking Wilkerson:
CHENEY: I think that it's important for us to have all the facts out. And the first and most important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program. This was an important program. It saved American lives.
Now, the way this policy worked internally was once the policy was determined and decided, the CIA, you know, made the judgments about how each individual detainee would be treated. And the vice president would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Not no one in his office, either?
CHENEY: -- of the CIA. So, I think it's very important for us to look at exactly what the facts are. And the facts are that three people were water-boarded. The people that are, you know, claims to be waterboarded in these articles are not any of those people.
And I think, frankly, you've also got to look at the source of some of these allegations. And one of the big sources is, you know, Colonel Wilkerson. Now, Colonel Wilkerson gets coverage because of his associations with General Powell. And --
STEPHANOPOULOS: His former chief of staff.
CHENEY: -- has made a cottage industry out of, you know, fantasies about the vice president since he left office.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, he's not the only one reporting it, but it's good to get your answer.

In addition to Acosta's report, a May 17 post on CNN's Political Ticker blog about Liz Cheney's comments similarly ignored Stephanopoulos' question concerning allegations that, in 2003, Dick Cheney's office suggested water-boarding an Iraqi detainee to obtain evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda link.

This is reminiscent of how the New York Times accommodated the original push for the invasion of Iraq, which was so in the tank for the administration that they later offered a ground breaking apology. (Media Matters)

MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which could appropriately be renamed MSNBC’s FOX News Hour predictably embraced the see-no-Cheney-evil- approach and thus far completely ignored the Cheney story except to suggest that Cheney’s criticism  influenced Obama’s decision to withhold the photos. On the Monday morning following the Cheney torture revelation the “Morning Joe” show queried one guest after another   on the assertion by Buchanan and Scarborough that Pelosi was lying on the infallible CIA. Bob Shrum was the only guest who pushed back telling Joe that Pelosi doesn’t lie, adding sarcastically “who would believe the CIA would lie to congress?”
 
The sheer gravity of the charge of ordering torture to justify the war is not going to allow this scandal to be consigned to the Blogesphere without ultimately and inexorably coming fully front and center in the newsmedia and becoming topic A among the political punditry. The McClatchy News organization broke this story April 21st.  Since then the drip drip has begun.  Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have acted as a journalistic investigative tag team and continued to dig up information on this explosive subject.

On the same Monday that Scarborough was trying to bury the Cheney story Rachel Maddow had Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of Staff on her show, who gave an exhaustive report on the extent of Cheney’s micro managing the torture of detainees in an effort to get them to admit to a connection between Iraq and Al Qaida. This is one story that’s not going away. Stay tuned.