Sometimes words have two meanings

Only a few days after a correction that put some plain English on White House spin, the New York Times Week in Review section completely caves into that spin with this "Editors' Note" --

An article last Sunday reported on the debate over how to try 14 terror suspects recently transferred to United States military custody. The Bush administration has proposed that the suspects be tried in military commissions under procedures the White House has presented to Congress, including rules that would allow the admission of evidence obtained under coercion or duress. Civil libertarians, on the other hand, say the suspects should get the stronger due-process protections of an ordinary court-martial.

The article included comment from Richard Goldstone, the South African chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, who objected to the provision “that evidence would be admitted even if obtained under duress or torture.”

The administration disputes this characterization of the proposed rules, saying they do prohibit the introduction of evidence obtained through torture. The article should have included this viewpoint, and should have reflected the fact that part of the debate is about how the term “torture” is interpreted.

While interesting in revealing White House sensitivity to the issue, it completely fails the "they would say that, wouldn't they?" test: The White House is never going to say that it's pro-torture, instead it's going to seek to change the accepted meaning of the word, the accepted meaning as captured by an international expert like Richard Goldstone. And note that it's only those wacky "civil libertarians" who want some due branch in these executive branch trials. This would all be a parody of "objective" journalism, except that no one (other than Tony Snow) is laughing.

UPDATE: Ian Buruma in the NYT Book Review, in discussing Frank Rich's book, puts it as follows --

If the opinions of columnists count for too much in the American press, the intelligence of reporters is institutionally underused. The problem is that there are not always two sides to a story. Someone reporting on the persecution of Jews in Germany in 1938 would not have added “balance” by quoting Joseph Goebbels. And besides, as Judith Miller found out, what is the good of quotes if they are based on false information?