This week one thing became abundantly clear: Media conservatives want to talk about torture -- well, not really; they want to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to stop the Bush administration's torture policies. You know, the policies conservatives contend worked great to keep us safe. Have trouble following their logic? That's sort of the point -- a shell game is designed to confuse the audience, forcing members of it to select the wrong shell and lose whatever money they've thrown on the table. There's little difference between that curbside gambling and what we're seeing now from conservatives.

This week one thing became abundantly clear: Media conservatives want to talk about torture -- well, not really; they want to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to stop the Bush administration's torture policies. You know, the policies conservatives contend worked great to keep us safe. Have trouble following their logic? That's sort of the point -- a shell game is designed to confuse the audience, forcing members of it to select the wrong shell and lose whatever money they've thrown on the table. There's little difference between that curbside gambling and what we're seeing now from conservatives.

In the process of focusing on what Pelosi and other congressional Democrats knew about the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques, as the GOP has advocated, some in the media have ignored evidence that the Bush administration began using the tactics in question before briefing congressional Democrats, and that upon learning of the techniques in 2003, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee expressed concerns to the CIA, but did not have the authority to force a change. Indeed, according to a May 2005 Bush Justice Department memo, following the Bush administration's authorization of the harsh interrogation techniques, CIA officials used one of the most controversial techniques, waterboarding, on Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in August 2002 -- before any congressional Democrats had been briefed on any of the tactics. According to the same Justice Department memo, CIA officials waterboarded Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in March 2003 -- after Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) had reportedly raised concerns to the CIA about the techniques in February 2003.

As Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times, said on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "[M]aking Nancy Pelosi into the big culprit of waterboarding is to move the spotlight to the wrong place." She's spot on, but that's just what we've seen this week.

In fact, Greg Sargent from The Washington Post Co.'s Plum Line blog detailed a crucial point about the ongoing Bizarro World coverage of the torture “debate” and how the forgotten issue of why the Bush administration OK'd the use of torture has morphed into a question about the credibility of Democrats. Wrote Sargent, “Multiple news accounts this morning report that Pelosi's credibility is in question after yesterday's press conference, in which she accused the CIA of lying about what they told members of Congress about the agency's use of torture. This theme was sounded by MSNBC, WaPo's Dan Balz, the New York Times write-up, and many others. That's as it should be. But I challenge you to find a news account that stated with equal prominence that the CIA's credibility is also in question.”

To illustrate just how far off the deep end media conservatives have jumped, we need look no further than Fox News' Dick Morris -- master of the disingenuous -- who this week expressed his interesting opinion that Pelosi should “step down” because “it is in the best interest of the American people.”

Morris wasn't alone. More and more, Fox News' attention to this story is beginning to look like an all-out campaign to boot the California Democrat from the speaker's chair.

The same day Morris made his comments, on America's Newsroom, Fox News contributor Andrea Tantaros stated, “I think the Democrats need to come out and call for her to tell the truth or resign, because she is really -- she's hurting her colleagues.” When co-host Megyn Kelly asked Tantaros, “Is it that bad? Are we at the point where a resignation demand should be made?” Tantaros responded, “Absolutely. And I think her colleagues need to do it. I think they need to call for her to either come out, tell what she knew, when she knew it, testify. If they find her to be lying, then she needs to step down.”

Additionally, on the next day's edition of America's Newsroom, Kelly asked Rep. Steve King (R-IA) of Pelosi: "[C]an she be held accountable, if indeed the American public believes that she lied, if the members of the House believe that she lied, and on top of lying, she then threw our CIA under the bus? What can be done to take away the speakership? What would be the procedure for that?" The same day, the supposedly unbiased Fox Nation, a Fox News website, also posted the headline “Watch Nancy Twist in the Wind: Is Her Speakership in Jeopardy?”

I see your question, Fox Nation, and I'll raise you one: “Will Fox News' incessant twisting of the truth in pursuit of Speaker Pelosi's scalp further call into question the right-wing cable network's journalistic integrity?” In a word, yes.

Other major stories this week:

How much is The Philadelphia Inquirer paying Bush's torture memo man?

So, President Bush's torture memo man John Yoo is now an Inquirer columnist. It's not really much of a surprise coming on the heels of the revelation that the Inquirer pays former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum $1,750 to write a quickie column, about five times the going rate for that kind of work. It does, however, leave us wondering how much the Inquirer must be paying Yoo.

The Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch this week broke the story that the Inquirer had signed a contract with Yoo to write a monthly column. Bunch wrote that the Inquirer offered Yoo a columnist spot despite his status as the “conservative legal scholar whose tenure in the Bush administration as a top Justice Department lawyer lies at the root of the period of greatest peril to the U.S. Constitution in modern memory.”

Yoo earned the condemnation of Bunch and many others while at the Justice Department because he, in Bunch's words, “argued for presidential powers far beyond anything either real or implied in the Constitution -- that the commander-in-chief could trample the powers of Congress or a free press in an endless undeclared war, or that the 4th Amendment barring unreasonable search and seizure didn't apply in fighting what Yoo called domestic terrorism.” Further, as Bunch pointed out, Yoo is best “known as the author of the infamous 'torture memos' that in 2002 and 2003 gave ... Bush and [former Vice President Dick] Cheney the legal cover to violate the human rights of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, based on the now mostly ridiculed claim that international and U.S. laws against such torture practices did not apply.”

Bunch quoted editorial page editor Harold Jackson suggesting that at the time the contract was signed, the Inquirer did not fully grasp his record: “Of course, we know more about Mr. Yoo's actions in the Justice Department now than we did at the time we contracted him.” But Jackson defended the Inquirer's decision, saying, among other things, according to Bunch: “Our readers have been able to get directly from Mr. Yoo his thoughts on a number of subjects concerning law and the courts.”

But Yoo's May 10 column casts doubt on even that assertion -- in the piece, Yoo made statements on the issue of judges showing empathy inconsistent with the arguments he offered in the past. In the column -- which carried the byline “John Yoo Inquirer Columnist” -- Yoo denounced President Obama's stated intention to nominate a Supreme Court justice who demonstrates the quality of empathy. Specifically, Yoo quoted from Obama's 2007 statement that he would seek judges who possess the “empathy” to “recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old.”

Deriding Obama's declaration of empathy as a key quality, Yoo wrote, “Obama ... now proposes to appoint a Great Empathizer who will call balls and strikes with a strike zone that depends on the sex, race, and social and economic background of the players. Nothing could be more damaging to the fairness of the game, or to the idea of a rule of law that is blind to the identity of the parties before it.”

But Yoo was not nearly as negative about demonstrations of empathy by a judge when he described the reasoning behind the judicial decisions of Justice Clarence Thomas, for whom Yoo clerked. To the contrary, in a review of Thomas' 2007 memoir, My Grandfather's Son -- in which Yoo praised Thomas' “unique, powerful intellect” and commitment to “the principle that the Constitution today means what the Framers thought it meant” -- Yoo touted the unique perspective that he said Thomas brings to the bench. Yoo wrote that Thomas “is a black man with a much greater range of personal experience than most of the upper-class liberals who take potshots at him” and argued that Thomas' work on the court has been influenced by his understanding of the less fortunate acquired through personal experience.

Worse still, as Media Matters noted this week, Yoo's newspaper writing may not have always presented his actual “thoughts” or views: In a May 29, 2004, Wall Street Journal op-ed, Yoo made assertions that were later revealed to be highly misleading or at odds with legal memos he had written during the Bush administration as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

More conservatives bow to leader Limbaugh

Last weekend on CBS' Face the Nation, when asked where he stood on a recent spat between Rush Limbaugh and former Secretary of State Colin Powell over the future of the Republican Party, Cheney said, “Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think.”

He wasn't alone. In the days that followed, a litany of conservative heavyweights lined up to support Cheney's take on the Limbaugh vs. Powell saga.

CNN political analyst and GOP consultant Alex Castellanos said, “I agree with the vice president. I'd pick Rush too.” MSNBC's Pat Buchanan concurred, saying Limbaugh is “a better Republican” than Powell, while Fox News' Sean Hannity declared he “couldn't agree more” with Cheney.

Former Bush adviser and current Fox News commentator Karl Rove stuck it to Powell, concluding, “It's not a very comforting vision to say my vision for the Republican Party's future is for Rush Limbaugh to shut up.”

Check out this YouTube video Media Matters put together in an attempt to highlight the latest round of right-wing Limbaugh ring-smooching.

Disturbing comments on Pelosi, Reid land CBS golf analyst in sand trap

Late last week, Media Matters noted that CBS golf analyst David Feherty, in an essay for a Dallas magazine wrote, “From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.”

In a statement to the press, Media Matters President Eric Burns responded: “Mr. Feherty's violent comments about Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are disgusting. Suggesting that our troops would attack the leaders of the very democracy they've sworn to sacrifice their lives for is an insult to their integrity, honor, and professionalism. CBS Sports should demand its golf analyst apologize to our soldiers.”

By that evening, Keith Olbermann was naming Feherty the “Worst Person in the World” for suggesting that “any U.S. soldier” would kill Pelosi and Reid.

Over the weekend, CBS Sports senior vice president of communications LeslieAnne Wade issued a statement in response to the brewing controversy over Feherty's comments, stating, “While outside his work for CBS, David Feherty is a popular humorist, we want to be clear that this column for a Dallas magazine is an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned, endorsed or approved by CBS Sports.” Pressure for an apology from Feherty mounted as the Associated Press ran a story that noted the golf analyst was coming “under sharp criticism” and the New York Daily News reported on the controversy under the headline “Shot at Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi lands CBS golf analyst in hot water.”

By late Sunday evening, Feherty was apologizing to Pelosi and Reid for his disturbing comments, saying in a statement, “This passage was a metaphor meant to describe how American troops felt about our 43rd president. In retrospect, it was inappropriate and unacceptable, and has clearly insulted Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, and for that, I apologize. As for our troops, they know I will continue to do as much as I can for them both at home and abroad.”

This week's media columns

This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert looks at how Arlen Specter is getting a taste of the GOP noise machine, and Jamison Foser discusses Barack Obama, Notre Dame, and the Casey myth.

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This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at Media Matters. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary.