Clearly, the liberal media broke the story when they did in order to influence the upcoming elections, thus lending aid to the terrorists.
 

Perhaps not smarty, but the story changes drastically with this bit of information...

I had thought the story exposed a cover up. Torture was rampant and perhaps sanctioned. The implication being that the administration is blowing wind up our ass telling us "torture is not condoned" when actually is. The reason the story was printed and we were all told about this problem was to expose this torture and to help change policy.

But with this information, the story is a bit less dramatic. That the pentagon had investigated and punished those directly involved include top brass, suggests there was no cover up. More to the point, it suggests the actual policy (stated or not) is anti-torture.

The story is really about feeding people's desire for sadism. Its the New York Times as Grand Theft Auto.

Furthermore, if the effect of the story was to aid terrorists (and surely it did even if that wasn't the intention), it makes one wonder if it should have been run. I can see balancing security against our need for honest government, but I don't see any need to balance our security with S&M fantasy.