I just read this report and thought, “Nah. This MUST be another case of supposedly humorous comments or writing being taken seriously.” I thought it might be like the Romney airplane comment that actually was a joke but not specified in reports so many took it seriously. Or I thought maybe it was ghost written by The Politico’s Roger Simon, trying his hand AGAIN at satire written with a straight face that also doesn’t elicit laughter but fools some of those who (once) trusted him. But it appears to be serious — unless The New York Times is now trying to “punk” readers and bloggers who take them seriously:
In one of his first acts, President Obama issued an executive order restricting interrogators to a list of nonabusive tactics approved in the Army Field Manual. Even as he embraced a hawkish approach to other counterterrorism issues — like drone strikes, military commissions, indefinite detention and the Patriot Act — Mr. Obama has stuck to that strict no-torture policy.
By contrast, Mr. Romney’s advisers have privately urged him to “rescind and replace President Obama’s executive order” and permit secret “enhanced interrogation techniques against high-value detainees that are safe, legal and effective in generating intelligence to save American lives,” according to an internal Romney campaign memorandum.
While the memo is a policy proposal drafted by Mr. Romney’s advisers in September 2011 — not a final decision by him — its detailed analysis dovetails with his rare and limited public comments about interrogation.
“We’ll use enhanced interrogation techniques which go beyond those that are in the military handbook right now,” he said at a news conference in Charleston, S.C., in December.
The campaign policy paper does not specify which techniques Mr. Romney should approve, saying more study was needed because Mr. Obama had “permanently damaged” the value of some by releasing memorandums detailing Bush-era techniques in April 2009.
Earth to Romney campaign: if this happened it would not be a case of the United States merely slipping, quietly, without notice, without formal announcement, into using these “techniques.”
It be all but an announcement that the United States was formally embracing them.
I’d assume Romney will get a few questions on this report and will disavow it.
Otherwise THIS (SATIRE ALERT) MUST be the case.
And I predict if the issue comes up and he doesn’t disavow it, he’ll add a reason why thoughtful Republicans and thoughtful conservatives will decide it might be better to see him lose so they can get a more thoughtful candidate to head the ticket in 2016.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.