News site says we "should be proud of waterboarding"

Words fail me.

When the Cincinnati Post ceased its print paper at the close of 2007, it wasn't because the area couldn't support 2 dailies. I'm convinced it's because of the type of wacky proclamations that continue to plague the Kentucky Post, which continues in Internet-only form.

Like today, it has a headline blaring, "Americans should be proud of waterboarding."

It's a link to a bizarre right-wing op-ed by think tank kook Deroy Murdock that rants against "liberals" and ignores the fact that waterboarding is an unreliable and illegal interrogation technique. The illegality of waterboarding is so established that this practice was tried as a war crime when Japanese troops used it during World War II. Even Reagan's Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff who used it.

How do we know Murdock's article strains reliability? Murdock once told Chris Matthews that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 (a belief that was debunked years ago), and he has claimed climate change is a hoax.

The Kentucky Post and Deroy Murdock are part of the Scripps Howard syndicate. Scripps Howard News Service does have some columnists who are generally accurate and fair - but when it turns right, it REALLY turns right.

Trust me: Scripps Howard was Bushist before Bushist was "cool." I remember reading the Post as a teenager and being perturbed that it was actually considered the area's "liberal" paper. Later, the Post opposed a much-needed minimum wage increase that 90% of the American public supported. Later still, the Post blamed a minimum wage increase for an unemployment spike - even though the wage increase hadn't taken effect yet. (That piece was not even labeled as an editorial.)

That's the kind of publication that would declare we "should be proud of waterboarding."

Something tells me the Kentucky Post isn't going to remain viable even as an Internet-only paper. Right-wing bias was as much of a bust for the newspaper biz as the rise of the Internet was. And this proves it.