On the front page of today’s Washington Post, one can read the following headline:

Effectiveness Of Harsh Questioning Is Unclear
Detainee May Have Faced Few Traditional Tactics

This language bothers me. We are talking about torture here, so why not use the term? Why downgrade it to “harsh questioning” and even make it sound innovative, which comes to mind as the opposite of “traditional”? A story broadcast by On the Media this week shows that the Washington Post is not alone in this. Apparently the media is following the Obama administration’s lead.

I understand the administration’s position, because it is hoping this dark cloud will go away and not overshadow its policy agenda. Nonetheless, I do not understand how the administration could possibly believe that it will go away. The administration needs to get ahead of the story, even if it feels it can’t prejudice any possible criminal cases by calling it torture.

Meanwhile, there is no reason why newspapers have to toe the line on what language to use. The mere existence of definitions of what could and could not be done does not mean that the interrogation techniques used by the CIA were any less torture.