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?
