Bush Downplayed Torture...in 1967

This story href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00F16FD3A5E147B93CAA9178AD95F438685F9">originally
ran in the New York Times, 40 years ago.
 It is behind a pay wall now, but it is href="http://harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001600">reprinted
in Harper's; I found it from a link at href="http://www.oldamericancentury.org/index.htm">Project
for an Old American Century:

"We Do Not
Torture": The Lies Started in 1967

DEPARTMENT: No Comment

BY: Scott Horton

PUBLISHED: November 5, 2007



    New York Times, “Branding Rite
Laid to Yale University,” Nov. 8, 1967



    NEW HAVEN, Nov. 7–A Yale
fraternity accused by the student newspaper of burning its initiates
with a brand will have its fate decided Friday by student fraternity
leaders.



    The fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon,
could face the temporary closure of its house and a $1,000 fine
resulting from alleged violations of rules previously passed by the
Inter-Fraternity Council, which consists of Yale’s five
fraternity presidents.



    The charges against Delta Kappa Epsilon
were made last Friday in a Yale Daily News article that accused campus
fraternities of carrying on “sadistic and obscene”
initiation procedures.



    The charge that has caused the most
controversy on the Yale campus is that Delta Kappa Epsilon applied a
“hot branding iron” to the small of the back of its
40 new members in ceremonies two weeks ago. A photograph showing a scab
in the shape of the Greek letter Delta, approximately a half inch wide,
appeared with the article.



    A former president of Delta said that
the branding is done with a hot coathanger. But the former president,
George Bush, a Yale senior, said that the resulting wound is
“only a cigarette burn.”

To be fair, burning in this context might not be torture, but it is
wrong, and it does tell us something about Bush's personality.
 It is not flattering.  Although no single episode is
sufficient to draw conclusions about someone's personality, this
suggests some serious psychopathology.



I wonder what ever happened to the charges and the $1,000 fine?