Opinion: In today’s pages: Megan’s Law, Barack’s race, CIA tapes
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Columnist Rosa Brooks wonders who’s to blame for the destruction of CIA tapes -- and for the interrogation methods they recorded:
If I had to guess, the tapes were destroyed because obstruction-of-justice charges are no big deal compared to war crimes charges.After we find out who authorized the destruction of the tapes, the true who-done-it will remain: Who gave the CIA the green light to use interrogation methods that the agency surely suspected were criminal? Who decided to let the U.S. adopt the interrogation methods of a hundred tin-pot dictators?Answering that one will be far more uncomfortable. It would be nice to find a scapegoat (Aha! It was Dick Cheney!), but the unpleasant truth is that the blame is pretty widespread.
USC’s Charles Fleming finds poetry in e-mail spam, Columbia University’s Trey Ellis wants to dispand the race police that keeps asking if Barack Obama is too black or not black enough. And columnist Patt Morrison explores the unintended consequences of Megan’s Law after the murder of a sex offender.
The editorial board wants more helicopters for Darfur, new anti-torture rules in response to the CIA tape throw-away, and better regulations to prevent prosecutors from making race-based jury selections.
Readers respond to The Times’ editorial series on American values. See why Northridge’s Vincent De Vita says the editorial is ‘perfect,’ while Pasadena’s Jordan Snedcof says it ‘reflects everything that can go wrong with editorial writing.’