Newsweek has wildly different takes on the two political parties this week. First, under a huge two-page picture of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, is "The Democratic Entourage: Can Rahm Emanuel deliver the House? His hotshot Hollywood brother is trying to help close the deal." The title refers to a fashionable HBO show about Hollywood titled "Entourage." Rahm's brother Ari Emanuel is pictured between the sultry sisters Paris and Nicky Hilton.
President Bush is pictured over a different headline: "The Politics of Torture." A smaller headline above it read: "Lost amid the legal wrangling over how to interrogate detainees are the techniques used in the war on terror."
The difference is also obvious as the articles begin. Howard Fineman and Holly Bailey began the Democratic article:
It is getting late in the season, but John Yarmuth still wants in—into the club, the entourage. He is the Democratic candidate for Congress in Louisville, Ky., hoping to oust Republican incumbent Anne Northup. The club is the Democrats' Red to Blue Program. If you are a member—there will be about 40 of them—donations from strangers across the country will blow through your campaign mail slot like letters from Hogwarts.
Michael Hirsh and Mark Hosenball began the Bush-favors-torture article comparing the administration to the Spanish Inquisition:
Waterboarding, which dates back to the Spanish Inquisition, is an interrogation method that involves strapping a prisoner face up onto a table and pouring water into his nose. The idea is to create the sensation of drowning so that the panicked prisoner will talk.
Well, not everyone in the GOP is portrayed as pro-torture. Newsweek, like everyone else, focused on the intra-party dispute between Bush and the McCain set.
