Weekend Video: Torturing Democracy

I watched Torturing Democracy last night and it’s stunning – meticulously researched, utterly amazing, devastating. I don’t feel like getting into the whole discussion about PBS’s inability to schedule the documentary before January 21, 2009: it’s perfectly understandable, given more pressing considerations, like Click and Clack’s As the Wrench Turns.

But a number of public television stations have broadcast the documentary and it’s available online for viewing anytime. Without getting too cliche-heavy, this is something you should see.

Lest I get too prickly about PBS, let me know note how they continue to advance their public service mission by pushing some of their best stuff to other places where people can discover and view it. Frontline’s latest installment of “The Choice” is on YouTube and Hulu, and probably other places. (Hulu directs you back to PBS.org to watch the video, as it does with CBS programs, etc.). And WGBH pushed a few gigabytes of the American Experience presidential profiles to iTunesU, where you can download them, free.

This is the kind of stuff (the content AND the strategy) that makes me proud to be in the business of serving the American people.