Double Standards?

So I keep reading an undue amount of US anti-EU articles, harping on about the fact that the EU denied the Turkish request for membership. I think in the frequency and stridency of these articles I detect a little US defensiveness because under the same criteria, the EU would have to deny any US membership application: support for the death penalty, and endorsement of torture in the service of the state. Of course, the fact that Turkey is also still at war with an EU member country, Greece, also bollixes up the situation somewhat. Not for NATO apparently though, which as a US-dominated organisation is bound to go along with the party line.