Jonathan Alter of Newsweek gives more information about the New York Times and the Bush administration’s attempts to keep NSAgate off the front-pages. Apparently Bill Keller and Arthur Sulzberger were summoned into the Oval Office for a little bit of the LBJ treatment.
No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
Bush must increasingly feel like a cornered rat. Even so, at this point when it comes to the New York Times, I won’t be surprised to learn that they have the source code used to fix the last election and are waiting for the War on Terror to end to publish what it knows.
It’s simply astonishing that they covered for Judy Miller, that they withheld evidence of indisputably impeachable offenses during a critical election year, and that they think their left-wing reputation can protect them from our wrath. The NYT’s let down the electorate, they let down the whole world.
I’m glad they FINALLY stood up to the President and ratted him out. Does anyone doubt that we need a more powerful blogosphere to counteract this crap?
Previously I’ve been sitting on the fence about continuing my NYT subscription. Now I’ve got to figure out what will replace it.
The NewsStandard…
The perfect cure for anyone sick of advertising, corporate and government uderwritten news.
I’ve replaced most of my NYT with more internet. It’s more informative and easier to navigate to the truth most of the time.
But the best of the internet relies on links to established news sources like the NYT. I like the net because it forces me to a broad spectrum of MSM sources — but they are still MSM. (Albeit analyzed wonderfully by bloggers.) So I don’t want to destroy the NYT — I want to find a way to force it to become better. Its one of the few papers with the resources to find stories. I just want them to publish them. Is that asking too much?
My question about the NYT is this.
Did they rat Bush out on principle, did they rat him out because they wanted to take some wind out of his sails as a result of the election process in Iraq having gone so peacefully, or did they rat him out because they couldn’t afford to look like fools being scooped on their own story when their own writer’s book comes out next week revealing the whole saga?
I suspect the latter was their prime motive. I suspect that had it not been for Risen’s book they wouldn’t have released the story at all.
Exactly. That, on top of the Judy Miller affair, would have been impossible to explain. But coming out with it now isn’t much better.
all I know is that I am infuriated by this and it makes me want to move to DC and develop my own goddamn clique of drinking buddies with inside information. And then I’ll shock them all by actually fucking publishing what I know.
Capitol Blue claims that they published the story a year ago, and several times since.
?
I could be wrong about it being Capitol Blue who claimed that … I went back through their recent newsletters and can’t find that claim. But some anti-Bush news group wrote that.
Each day I think that the ineptitude (deliberate obfuscation) of the MSM can’t get any worse. Then I’m proved wrong.
The weird thing is that while I never doubted this shit was going on, I am shocked, shocked to read proof and more proof everyday that it is just as bad as I thought.
How can I be so shocked?
I’m still shocked because I never wanted to believe my country could go so far down the path to authoritarian/fascist rule.
But we have.
No kidding, huh?
You know before Air America came to LA I used to occasionally listen to wing-nut radio (Hannity etc). All day every day they would make shit up about the Left just to fill their airtime.
But with Air America they not only don’t have to make stuff up – they do not have time to fit everything in!!
BushCo provides so much corruption and lies that we really need two radio networks just to keep up.
Honest to God I get up every morning and turn on the computer just knowing that their will be a new scandal that comes up with the sun. Amazing.
I’ve been looking for someone to do a BushCo Year In Review to download and have not yet found it – but honestly – I’m not sure if my hard drive is big enough to hold it anyway.
Try JibJab. They have a pretty fun “Year in Review” of bush’s messes… But they still could only cover a thumbnails worth of the body of work available.
BTW, in the PRI/NPR “To The Point” that I linked in the “I Spy” story below, Bob Barr says flat out that what Bush did is illegal.
If Bob Barr says so, that’s good enough for me.
Unless there’s a more responsible, more adult, and more principled and aware member of the Sulzberger clan who can depose “Pinch” and take over the paper, I fear the Times has a lot further to fall before it may have the opportunity and ability to resurrect itself. Getting rid of Keller would be a good start, but I think Arthur Sulzberger Jr. needs to be absolutely sidelined for any real positive movement to be able to evolve over time.
So, who do we think leaked this part of the story to Alter? I can’t see Sulzberger or Keller talking to him. Another Times reporter? Or someone in the WH?
Well, he hasn’t convinced George Will Will says the actions clearly contravened a statute — and he isn’t buying the implied powers argument. And he makes the point most people are making — if the President thought he needed more powers, why didn’t he ask Congress. Will believes Congress would have given him powers after 9/11. I’d like to believe he’s wrong – but he’s probably right.
Then he goes on about how conservatism was a reaction to the New Deal’s regulatory state — but conservatives seem to have forgotten this.
And he points out that Bush’s antipathy to congressional oversight is almost pathological — although he calls it a “metabolic urge”.
Not a good sign for President George when he loses Pundit George.
Everyday if you look at the Times you see a kiss ass article by Wong and a stupid commentary by “dexter the Jester Filkins” straight from Wolverton Mountain…meaning he’s a faux liberal clown talking about the progress admidst “problems” in Iraq. As if there is any chance that any thing the US says could possibly happen ….could possibly happen. The United States has walked into a field of land mines, been blown up, but still claims use of it’s legs.
THey are all Judy Millers at the Times. Sulzberg is such a scared kiss ass. Even Krugman and Dowd have not attacked their own paper. You have to do that. You can’t be a Colon Fowl. They are secure monitarily. What are they waiting for?
New York is a great city it deserves a better News paper. The NYT is no different than Pravada in the 70’s… I have never read Pravada but …..that what it has become.
The U.S. has been bitten by the vampire of Stalin and become the new Soviet Union. We are buiding a new Iron curtain made from oil by-products.
It’s good to be the king, dontcha know. The great unwashed of the blogosphere are still finding their way. And in that process making absurd proclamations that this is a “new” medium. Horse hockey. The nascent power of coordinated online action was exercised in France, by university students [.pdf] using MINITEL, in the mid-80’s. They shut down the entire system in two weeks.
It is the nature of this beast that, absent any sort of coordinating mechanism, the bulk of the task is still accomplished by (gasp!) the telephone.
I give you this one free: compile a mailing list (yes, the old “MajorDomo”) with membership restricted to those wonderful folks on your blogroll. Trust is involved, so each of you must submit full name, address, and phone, and operate the list using 128-bit encryption. (1024 is better).
Let’s call it the “B.C.” list (for Bartholomew Cubbins). From that list you will each submit one story per week, from which the group will vote on the top ten, which will then be front-paged on everyone’s blog with the logo:
[Image ripped from Oscar]
WTF. You got a better idea? Let’s read it.
I’m all for mailing lists. We are compiling one here in New Orleans of public housing residents.
I don’t think blogs can do what the corporate media does, because, we aren’t that corporate…yet.
One reason I opposed ads is because it changes the spirit of your dissent, even if ever so subtly.
The corporate media has an “in”, because they are corporate. They are going to know things we don’t have privy to.
I for one assume the worse about our government right now, and hope for the best. I mean, who has really doubted that we weren’t being spied on since Bush took office?