Creative Uses for a Light Stick
Yesterday and today in his daily White House Briefing column, Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin referred to the rape rooms and torture chambers of Saddam Hussein as being "under new management." This pithy phrase originated, as far as I can tell, on "The Daily Show with John Stewart" when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. What is notable about Froomkin's usage is that he didn't source it. I remember this line being quoted often as it so succinctly summed up the moral catastrophe that the war on terror is becoming, but people always referenced The Daily. I guess it's become part of the national lexicon now. Frank Rich's editorial from the other day pretty accurately sums up why nobody in the media seems to care about this on-going monstrosity (people are much more interested in Katie Couric's prurient special on teen sex. The horror!) Apparently, the mortgaging of America's moral authority isn't newsworthy. We'll see what happens with the confirmation of Alberto "Torture Boy" Gonsalez this week.
posted by EB at 2:28 PM
2 Comments:
were you aware that the word prurient comes from the Latin "prurire" which means "to itch"? This is why I keep a dictionary beside my desk; you can learn all sorts of fascinating shit (like how to spell "fascinating").
10:12 PM
I like how they titled it: "The 411: Teens and Sex." The use of 411 really lends an air of hip credibility, especially since Ms. Couric needed teenagers to tell her what "friends with benefits" means. It just makes me wonder, does Ms. Couric actually consider herself a "journalist?" Or does she consider herself more of an on-screen mouthpiece who demonstrates the depth (or shallows?) of public American idiocy?
10:19 PM
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