The Gray Lady Hides the Disagreement
This is kind of creepy. After learning yesterday that the Administration conned the NYT out of publishing details of the domestic wiretap program by telling the NYT that there had been no significant disagreement about the program …
The first known assertion by administration officials that there hadbeen no serious disagreement within the government about the legalityof the N.S.A. program came in talks with New York Times editors in2004. In an effort to persuade the editors not to disclose theeavesdropping program, senior officials repeatedly cited the lack ofdissent as evidence of the program’s lawfulness.
[snip]
Mr. Gonzales’s 2006 testimony went unchallenged publicly until May of this year, when James B. Comey, the former deputy attorney general, described the March 2004 confrontation to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I thought I’d review what the NYT said about Gonzales’ public claim when they reported on his testimony in February 2006. The NYT provided extensive coverage of Gonzales’ testimony, providing:
- A Lichtblau/Risen overview of the testimony (with reporting from Scott Shane, one of the authors of yesterday’s article)
- An editorial critical of Gonzales’ appearance
- A legal review of the issues surrounding wiretapping
- An article painting the Democrats as spineless
- A short article describing the normal (legal) FISA process
- Excerpts from Gonzales’ testimony
And in spite of all that attention to the testimony, the NYT didn’t mention Gonzales’ claim that there was no disagreement about the program–not once.
actually — while i agree with EW’s fine
analysis of how terribly late to the party
the paper of record has been — and that
they could have written more today, about
what they knew, but did not write, then. . .
i actually appreciate that a national
newspaper’s editorial board is calling
for alberto gonzales’ impeachment, should
paul clement fail to appoint a special
prosecutor (as he, no doubt, will).
so i have this to say, today, about that:
â€the new york times’. . . story last
evening — while printing an
administration-endorsed explanation
for alberto gonzales’ dissembling
before congress, last tuesday — had the
salutory effect, to the discerning eye,
at least, of making plain[er] what many
of us have already come to accept
as true. alberto gonzales is a liar.
and not about his golf handicap, or
whether he two-, or three-putted, on
the fourth green. . .
no, he has lied about cheney’s (and bush’s)
efforts to snoop on americans in violation
of their contitutionally guaranteed rights.
rights he — and his office — had sworn to
protect. the times called for his impeach-
ment, at the end of the above editorial.
personally — as with cheney — i am calling
for his indictment. that is what the special
prosecutor ought to do. . .â€
great stuff, as ever, EW!
ah, the ghost of â€brill content†hovers, smiling.
it is so rewarding to see the sly, evasive behavior of the nytimes leaders laid out in
such extensive detail.
the â€paper of record†is not,
nor has it ever been.
that term is self-serving, self-applied, and historically inaccurate to a degree that should be shameful to sulzberger and family –
but never is.
the ny(twit)times is just a corporate media creature which has demonstrated repeatedly that
its highest goal
is schmoozing,
or playing footsie,
with republican political power.
I am having trouble understanding what is new here. We’ve known for awhile that the Times suppressed the story until well after the 2004 elections. That was a crime against the nation because the news, if released prior to the election, might have changed the outcome.
Now we have another revelation in that same vein. Is this new story about additional details which the Times suppressed? If so, what are the key new details that have just emerged?
Sorry to be so thick-headed!
Ralph
My focus here is on the ways the NYT should have been intervening in debates about Gonzales’ testimony. Had they said, â€This is the second time the Admin is using this excuse, but we now consider it false.†It would have made it a lot harder for BushCo to sustain Gonzales’ claim for over a year until it got to this point.
Another thing the NYT does not disclose is how the Administration described to the editors back in 2004 â€the program†over which they claimed there was no disagreement. Yet that is precisely the focus on today’s debate. Did the Admininstration claim then that the entire â€program†was beyond disagreement? Or did they use weasle words then that would support the distinction the Gonzales’ defenders are using today? The NYT knows that’s a key question, and they know the answer, but they won’t answer the question nor even acknowledge that they might know the answer.
Scarecrow, that was exactly the point of my response yesterday. There isn’t that much new here and all the NYT is doing is CYA. They won’t answer that question because the answer makes them look lame.
I get irritated with the newz media as well, but I’d like to see them put more resources into the ’synthesis’ and ’contrast/compare’, database-driven content that they’ve begun to develop in the past 18 months. For a fine example, see how they’ve compared Bush’s â€State of the Unionâ€: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/was…..NION.html.
The NYT should something like this with Alberto Gonzales’s remarks to Congress.
Congress, the media, and even many in the military and government failed to recognize the inner logic of Bu$hCo, because it’s so far outside the normal framework for many Americans that we were punk’d.
Bu$hCo doesn’t give a rat’s ass about ’traditional American values’; it’s about shareholder dividends and international power politics. The logic of Privatization and Market Theology in a globalized economy require secrecy, subverting the military to corporate interests (â€I pledge allegiance to the Oil Fields of the Middle East, and the necessary conflagration for which they stand…â€), and privatizing public resources like electricity (which started in Bush I, and blew up in Bush II). I’m still getting up to speed on Iran-Contra, but even a cursory view suggests that the neocons and the Bush Family concluded that mercenary armies, ability to spy on one’s economic and political competitors, and money-laundering are fundamental to whatever structures they hide behind a patina of wealth, respectability, and flag-waving.
Congress, the US, and the medi now confront a monster that grew because of their own negligence, misplaced duty, misplaced trust, and misplaced goodwill. Let’s hope that, unlike the NYT, the Congress will refuse to continue being punk’d by Gonzo and his handlers.
I’m not sure what the full nature and scope of the rogue, globalized Bu$hCo threat really is, but it’s not ’American’ in any traditional, decent, citizen-legislator sense of the term. Not one bit.
readerOfTeaLeaves — Do you really think it’s possible to stop the monster now that it has grown so big? I have trouble believing that Democrats won’t succumb to the siren song of corporate power, not because I know any arcane details of how that corporate power is sold to politicians — that’s still a mystery to me — but just by the evidence of the number of Republicans have come to be totally controlled. Can Democrats really be that different?
I’m a lifelong Democrat and it’s obvious to me that by and large the Democrats are better, more capable people than (especially) the current crop of Republican zombies. That’s not the point. I’m just afraid they too will fall down the rabbit hole.
oops, disagreement was over data mining not eavesdropping
lets go for single digit congressional approval
keep up the good work Marcy