Tortured Phrasing

Awhile back I noted that the New York Times still refused to call the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the Bush Administration "torture" even though they clearly are torture as defined by U.S. law, international law, past American war crimes prosecutions, etc.

Today Andrew Sullivan – a Burkean conservative who has been outspoken in his opposition to the Bush torture regime – notes that the New York Times has no problem using the word "torture" when other countries do it. How ridiculously timid the Times has been over and over again the past eight years in the face of massive government criminality, as though the purpose of a free press is to do little more than repeat government propaganda.

Sullivan's initial post is here. His follow up is here.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald picks it up as well:

There's been a major editorial breach at The New York Times today...

[S]houldn't this be called "torture" rather than torture -- or "harsh tactics some critics decry as torture"? Why are the much less brutal methods used by the Chinese on Fischer called torture by the NYT, whereas much harsher methods used by Americans do not merit that term? Here we find what is clearly the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse: everything is different, and better, when we do it.