Worst euphemism of the decade: ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’

Dick Cheney told ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week” yesterday that, “I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques.”  That phrase strikes me as a terribly misleading euphemism. Would people support it if they knew that interrogation professionals like retired Army Col. Stuart Herrington and Chief Warrant Officer 2 John Groseclose consider such techniques to be degraded and counterproductive interrogation techniques? Enhanced, my foot. A Best Defense demerit to Karl for not pinging him on this. Enhance your interview technique, Jonathan.

Speaking of Cheney, I like Politico but I think Vandenhei, Harris and Allen have built him into more than he really is. He ain’t no savant. He has a lot of amateurish mistakes to answer for, most notably his unfounded but official embrace of torture. At this point, Cheney strikes me as a cranky, bald version of abdicated Gov. Palin. 

Politico has a lot of good days. But on its bad ones, it reminds me of the people who were attacking FDR around 1934. I would say that Cheney reminds me of Charles Curtis, but I think that is unfair to Hoover’s vice president, and to Native Americans generally.