Waterboarding

Forms of waterboarding have been around since the fifteen hundreds. The styles have varied but the overall objective has stayed consistent. Waterboarding is a form of torture where the subject being tortured is made to feel as if they were drowning. Waterboarding has been found to be an excessive and brutal form of torture and therefore was outlawed in the United States during the Vietnam War. This essay discusses the similarities and differences between three different news outlets that reported on waterboarding. The first report discussed comes from a news outlet known as Democracy Now. Amy Goodman conducts an interview with Senator Patrick Leahy, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and Senator Edward Kennedy. The second news outlet examined is an article by Deroy Murdock, an American conservative columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service and a contributing editor with National Review Online. The third news outlet examined is an article taken from the CNN website.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey seemed to bob and weave around the question, “Is waterboarding illegal?” After intense questioning by Senator Kennedy, Mukasey admitted that if it was done to him it would feel like torture, but was unsure if it could be deemed illegal. Mukasey cleverly used the argument that he was not at liberty to say since an artificial circumstance would have to be developed. Since Mukasey was unable to know the particular circumstances, an answer would be fundamentally wrong to give. Mukasey demonstrated an excellent job at ducking the question, followed by an even more eloquent job at ducking the blame. I felt as though Democracy Now had set up the Attorney General. There were three men questioning him, who I felt were all on the same team, a team apposing Mukasey. Since Mukasey has been made Attorney General under the current administration (Republican) and is himself a republican, I could only assume that he was defending his parties policies. As discussed in chapter four of Leighley, I feel that the interview was steared towards the Audience’s Interest. An audience dominated by liberals. (Leighley 2004) Although Democracy Now is looked at as a non-biased news source it is my personal feeling that the liberal agenda was fulfilled by this attack on the Attorney General. I do not mean to imply that I personally agree with Mukasey, but I feel that another voice agreeing with Mukasey should have been heard.

The article written by Deroy Murdock is a perfect example of opposition to the feelings of the democratic views that were shared in the interview above. In his article Murdock writes, “Waterboarding is something in which every American should be proud.” Following this statement Murdock backs his claim up by using the example of the capture and information extraction of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an al Qaeda leader. Murdock argues that waterboarding and other techniques including