Media Monitor: Bush on torture, Barack on Bush, the Voice on local rightwing bloggers

Bush approved interrogation techniques, media yawns: On Friday, ABC News reported that George W. Bush knew of detailed discussions with top brass about the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, on al-Qaeda detainees and that he approved. Big news, right? Not really: aside from ABC and WaPo’s Dan Froomkin (who covered it Monday), few mainstream media outlets have yet to say a word.

No timid media here: Given Bush’s admission, here’s a probing question by Will Bunch of Attytood: Will presidential candidates seek to prosecute Bush administration officials for greenlighting torture techniques? He got Barack Obama on record saying that he was open to the possibility: “What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued.”

“Confederacy of Dunces”: MNspeak links up a Village Voice rundown of conservative bloggers, which includes the TC’s own James Lileks (“Candidate: Undeclared, leaning toward George Wallace”) and the Power Line guys (“Stupid/Evil Ratio: 30/70″). It offers little locals didn’t already know, but reminds us of Power Line’s “howlingly unsuccessful” attempts at Rathergate-style breaking news (“Bin Laden is dead. More leaks are starting to come out . . .”-July 27, 2002) and Lileks’ rightward slide from “scrupulous coverage” of dogwalking to “grumpy-old-man swipes at graffiti” to post-9/11 musings on terrorism and feminism (“I cannot possibly think of any good reason to ever strike a woman, unless it’s the one in the uniform who wants to pry my daughter’s arms from my neck because the state has decided all men must leave the household for the good of the People”).