NY Times Aiding, Abetting and Traitorous

The people in the plastic bubble, live in a world different than ours. Theirs is one of groupthink, where to question their wisdom and knowledge meets with a full on assault or denial of reporting; depending upon the subject.

The NY Times has been despicably unbalanced in it's reporting for quite sometime now. Anything to the Left is considered "middle of the road" to them and anything to the Right; extremist. They believe they hold the moral high ground, yet they do not. They need to begin reporting again, rather than preaching.

Bill Keller the Executive Editor in defense of the NY Times says:

(It was a) "hard call." (He) noted that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has "embarked on a number of broad, secret programs aimed at combating terrorism, often without seeking new legal authority or submitting to the usual oversight."

Adding: "I think it would be arrogant for us to pre-empt the work of Congress and the courts by deciding these programs are perfectly legal and abuse-proof, based entirely on the word of the government."

But I guess it is not "arrogant" to give the administration a tiny, wee, small benefit of the doubt. Keller sees what the administration has been doing with its "broad, secret programs," and has decided that they are in fact illegal actions, when nothing of the sort has been decided or proved. It's just been a whole lot of belly aching.

Here is a gem of an e-mail written by Keller previously, regarding "leak investigations" stemming from articles written by "the paper of record" and others.

From Mediabistro.com:

"I'm not sure journalists fully appreciate the threat confronting us -- The Times in the eavesdropping case, the Post for its CIA prison stories, and everyone else who has tried to look behind the war on terror. Maybe we're suffering a bit of subpoena fatigue. Maybe some people are a little intimidated by the way the White House plays the soft-on-terror card.

"Whatever the reason, I worry that we're not as worried as we should be. No president likes reporters sniffing after his secrets, but most come to realize that accountability is the price of power in our democracy. Some officials in this administration, and their more vociferous cheerleaders, seem to have a special animus towards reporters doing their jobs. There's sometimes a vindictive tone in way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries and in the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors. I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values they profess to be promoting abroad."

You kind of see where he is coming from, don't you? The bad guys are the U.S. led by the pirate Bush, where Bush cannot possibly be doing anything within the law.

Eternity Road says:

President Bush was entirely justified in his anger at the Times for its arrogation of the privilege of deciding what classified secrets are fit for publication, and for its airy dismissal of the strenuous efforts by the Administration to dissuade it from revealing the SWIFT program to the world.

For almost poetic writing and cogent logic finish reading Francis' post at Eternity Road.

tag: DeMediacrat tag: War on Terror tag: NY Times and Our Secrets