Well, chalk it up to 2 — that’s right — TWO election-changing stories that the New York Times prevented from being published before the 2004 presidential election.
As tlh lib has alerted us while I was writing this diary: The New York Times Ombudsman, Byron Calame, has just published an article stating that executive editor, Bill Keller, had discussions on the eve of the November election on whether to publish the now infamous story about Bushco.’s illegal wire-tapping of U.S. citizens.
This is in addition to killing a story originally broke by David Lindorff in which a senior NASA imaging specialist confirmed that there was an mechanical device of some kind on Bush’s back during the debates.
WIRE-TAPPING STORY:
Despite What the New York Times stated in December, 2005 — the decision to “hold” this story was NOT made a year ago (in December, 2004). As the NYT ombudsman has discovered, Keller has confirmed that this decision was being made BEFORE the 2004 election.
Internal discussions about drafts of the article had been “dragging on for weeks” before the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Keller acknowledged. That process had included talks with the Bush administration. He said a fresh draft was the subject of internal deliberations “less than a week” before the election.
“The climactic discussion about whether to publish was right on the eve of the election,” Mr. Keller said. The pre-election discussions included Jill Abramson, a managing editor; Philip Taubman, the chief of the Washington bureau; Rebecca Corbett, the editor handling the story, and often Mr. Risen. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, was briefed, but Mr. Keller said the final decision to hold the story was his.
In addition…
Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the election also was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said. I agree that candidates affected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to a week — to get their response disseminated before voters head to the polls.
Hmm…but why did Keller have to say this if the reason they held it was because they thought the program was legally justified?
He has repeatedly indicated that a major reason for the publication delays was the administration’s claim that everyone involved was satisfied with the program’s legality. Later, he has said, it became clear that questions about the program’s legality “loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood.”
Here’s part of the original statement made by Keller in December, 2005:
“A year ago, when this information first became known to Times reporters, the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country’s security.”
Why the apparent contradiction in the date of the NY Times’ awareness of this story? Keller explains that it was “bad wording”. It should have said “more than a year”.
O.K., but isn’t this detail about the date particularly important when there was a little bitty presidential election happening around that time? Didn’t that warrant Mr. Keller being a little bit more sensitive about what he should say with respect to the dates?
The Ombudsman agrees:
Given the importance of this otherwise outstanding article on warrantless eavesdropping — and now the confirmation of pre-election decisions to delay publication — The Times owes it to readers to set the official record straight.
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THE “BUSH BULGE”:
During all 3 presidential debates, photographic evidence shows that there was some sort of device strapped on to the president’s back. Here are the photographs of Debate 1, 2 & 3.
More bulge photos may be found HERE (there’s also photo evidence showing what appears to be a wire under his tie).
Despite the “sensationalistic” nature of this evidence, it is hard indisputable evidence nonetheless. In fact, I would argue that this was the most “objective” story in the 2004 campaign that could have seriously damaged Bush’s chances at being elected.
Of note, the GOP came up with at least 6 official explanation at the time to discredit this story (you may verify these if you would like — I’ve memorized it):
- It was an implant made by space aliens (advisor on Tim Russert when the story first broke)
- It was a Photoshop trick (when the story persisted)
- The presidential tailor tried to explain that it was a wrinkle on the jacket(when it was found that Fox video confirmed the bulge)
- The president himself explains that it was a poorly tailored shirt (Charles Gibson interview)
- It was a bullet-proof jacket (the Secret Service explanation AFTER the election)
6 It was nothing (Dick Cheney after the SS explanation)
Obviously, there was a lack of co-ordination on the effort to explain away the bulge. They probably underestimated the staying power of the blogs covering this at the time. The blogs chatter about this issue was so loud, in fact, that this story was then published at Salon.com and MotherJones.com. Then came the story that an senior NASA imaging expert, Dr. Robert M. Nelson, (who worked on space-satellite imagery) analysed the debate photos and discovered, conclusively, that the president was, indeed, wearing a mechanical device on his back.
How can Nelson be certain there’s some kind of mechanical device beneath Bush’s jacket? It’s all about light and shadows, he says. The angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush’s jacket expose contours that fit no one’s picture of human anatomy and wrinkled shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn’t produce anything close to the Bush bulge.
In the enhanced photo of the first debate, Nelson says, look at the horizontal white line in middle of the president’s back. You’ll see a shadow. “That’s telling me there’s definitely a bulge,” he says. “In fact, it’s how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that’s clearly a crater that’s under the horizontal line — it’s clearly a rim of a bulge protruding upward, one due to forces pushing it up from beneath.”
This Salon.com and MotherJones.comstory spread like wildfire throughout the blogosphere.
Nelson then went to other major publishes, such as the Washington Post and L.A. Times who were not interested in this story. Then, Nelson talked to 2 science reporters at the NY Times. As David Lindorff explains:
Nelson went next to veteran science writer William Broad at the New York Times, where at least initially he had better luck. Broad passed the story to two Times science writers, Andy Revkin and John Schwartz, who went out and reported further on it.
My own investigation, which included tracking down Revkin’s and Schwartz’s sources, showed that they had gone to scientists at Cornell (to confirm Nelson’s reputation), the Bush campaign, and to spyware experts and makers of devices similar to what Nelson had found under the presidential jacket. It was a major story they developed, and on the week before election day, it was ready to run–first on Tuesday, Oct. 26, and then, after being bumped by another Times investigation–the story about the unguarded cache of high-density explosives in Iraq–on Thursday, Oct. 28.
Then something happened. According to Times sources, on Wednesday evening, when the story was typeset and ready to go, senior editors killed it, claiming it was “too close” to the election. The Extra! article includes email messages from one of the Times reporters to JPL’s Nelson apologizing for the killing of the story.
Again, I don’t have to point out to you how explosive this story could have been if the New York Times would have published this before the election. What if it was an electronic ear device to help him with the debates? Would voters be inclined to elect a “war president” who can’t think on his feet? The illusion would be completely shattered. If it was a health device of some kind (such as a portable defibrillator), the impact may have been just as high. Regardless, Americans deserved to know the truth.
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So, there ya go. TWO important stories that the NY Times willfully witheld from the American electorate days before a crucial election.
The ombudsman is correct. The Grey Lady has a lot of ‘splainin to do.