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Citing a misleading Washington Post article that stated that alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed became cooperative after being subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other interrogation techniques, conservative media have advanced the falsehood that three recently released 2004 CIA documents prove that these enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) were necessary to gain valuable intelligence. In fact, two CIA memos on the value of intelligence obtained from detainees do not discuss interrogation techniques, and a CIA inspector general's (IG) report of the CIA's interrogation program stated that "[t]he effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained cannot be easily measured."

In his forthcoming book, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge reportedly claims that politics may have played a role in the question of whether to raise the terror threat levels on the eve of the November 2004 presidential election -- echoing contemporaneous allegations made by several progressives. Media Matters for America presents a sampling -- by no means exhaustive -- of media personalities who at the time portrayed those progressives as suffering from "cynicism" and "paranoia" and obsessed with a "conspiracy theory," despite credible evidence that the Bush administration was using the War on Terror for political gain, particularly in the months before the 2004 election.

Fox News' John Gibson and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough each asserted that if President Obama abandons Bush administration policies and procedures "which kept us safe for the last seven, eight years," in Gibson's words, Obama will bear responsibility for any future act of terrorism. However, neither mentioned evidence that President Bush's policies did not eliminate the terrorist threat to America and that some Bush policy decisions, such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, may, in fact, have aggravated the threat.

Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade falsely suggested that only "people at the U.N." want to close Guantánamo, while co-hosts Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson, as well as Glenn Beck, used TV drama 24 as a justification for the use of torture. In fact, Sen. John McCain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and five former secretaries of state are among those who have said that Guantánamo should be closed.

During an interview with President Bush that aired on Fox News' Special Report, Bret Baier asked Bush, "Do you believe that there hasn't been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in more than seven years because of the policies your administration has implemented?" The question tracked a talking point reportedly contained in a "two-page memo" that the Los Angeles Times reported "presents the Bush record as an unalloyed success" and "mentions none of the episodes that detractors say have marred his presidency."

KSFO radio hosts Lee Rodgers and Brian Sussman repeated the falsehood that a 1995 memo written by then-deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick prohibited intelligence-sharing between the FBI and the CIA, thereby causing the intelligence failures that led to the 9-11 attacks. In fact, the Gorelick memo merely clarified long-unwritten restrictions on the sharing of information between the FBI's intelligence arm and the Justice Department's criminal division, and had no impact on communications between the FBI

On Hannity & Colmes, National Review's Rich Lowry aired a clip of Sen. John McCain falsely asserting that Sen. Barack Obama said he's "going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation," a distortion of Obama's statement about Pakistan that McCain has repeatedly made. Lowry then echoed McCain by saying that Obama "detailed his willingness to bomb suspected terrorist cells in Pakistan." In fact, Obama said: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Per

MSNBC's David Gregory did not challenge Republican strategist Mike Murphy's false claim that "Barack Obama's talked about paratroopers in Islamabad, for heaven's sake." In fact, Obama has stated that "[i]f we have actionable intelligence about high-level Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan's border region, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot." A Media Matters review found no examples of Obama calling for dropping "paratroopers in Islamabad" or anywhere else in Pakistan.

While discussing whether Sen. John McCain is "smart to make national security the centerpiece of his campaign," Chris Matthews highlighted McCain's recent Middle East trip and said McCain was "showing off his foreign policy credentials." But at no point did Matthews, or any of his guests, point out that, during his trip, McCain made the admittedly false claim that "Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran."

On CNN, Washington Times columnist Diana West said that "Senator Obama's made it very clear that he believes terrorism is simply a matter of cops and robbers." Host Lou Dobbs did not challenge West's assertion echoing claims by the McCain campaign that Obama has said are "demonstrably false."