Fake but accurate

We've noted before how the New York Times corrections section provides a useful index of Republican enforcement of particular spin points. There is another revealing one today. In the wide coverage of the fact that Dubya has replaced the guy who thought that brothels were a bigger threat to America than Osama with the guy who helped trash the Geneva Conventions, it was often said that the latter, Alberto Gonzales, had described the conventions as "quaint." Well, he did, but:

[New York Times correction] The passage [from his legal writings], discussing the war on terrorism, read in full: "In my judgment, this new paradigm [War on Terror] renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms and scientific instruments.'' The version in the article yesterday was truncated after "some of its provisions."

So the interpretation is clear: the White House sees the impact of a potential spin point New Attorney General says Geneva Convention Quaint, and is moving to head it off as quickly as possible. A couple of responses. First, the 'quaint' word was clearly anchored to what sounds like a 1940s conception of POW life. So we suppose the point is that Dubya's lawyers are strict constructionists when it comes to the text of the 1789 Constitution, but not to the much more recent Geneva Conventions.

Second, note the previous clause of the disputed sentence -- he clearly says that the restrictions on interrogation are obsolete, and in that section he's not talking about the sort of POW life envisaged in a certain movie starring Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, Max von Sydow, and Pele.

And there is a broader point. Why wouldn't the Republicans be alert to the potency of the arguably out-of-context quote, since they made such effective use of it themselves? Who among us has not heard that John Kerry said "I voted for it before I voted against it," that he wanted a "global test" for US self-defence operations, and that he said "who among us" at a stock-car race in Wisconsin?

The bottom line is that, as sweet as it would be to hit them with their own trick, sensible liberals should stay away from the claim that Gonzales said that the Conventions were quaint. There's enough dirt in everything else he wrote to avoid that distraction.