Global War on Terror Watch: Piling on the New York Times?

Washington Post: Piling On the New York Times With a Scoop

Story on Secret Program Further Rouses Critics

President Bush calls the conduct of the New York Times “disgraceful.” Vice President Cheney objects to the paper having won a Pulitzer Prize. A Republican congressman wants the Times prosecuted. National Review says its press credentials should be yanked. Radio commentator Tammy Bruce likens the paper to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Even by modern standards of media-bashing, the volume of vitriol being heaped upon the editors on Manhattan’s West 43rd Street is remarkable — especially considering that the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal also published accounts Friday of a secret administration program to monitor the financial transactions of terror suspects. So, in its later editions, did The Washington Post.

And so Howard Kurtz begins his “weak sauce” rationale for the New York Times disgraceful conduct on publishing the details of the SWIFT Bank Data Anti-Terror Program.

For a media critic, Kurtz in his opening paragraphs fails to distinguish between the egregiously anti-American conduct of the New York and Los Angeles Times and his own paper including the Wall Street Journal. Patterico has a good common sense discussion of the obvious differences here. Kurtz should take a look but does he want to understand?

Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in an interview yesterday that critics “are still angry at us” for disclosing the government’s domestic eavesdropping program in December, “and I guess in their view, this adds insult to injury. . . . The Bush administration’s reaction roused their base, but also roused the anti-Bush base as well,” he said, noting an approximately even split in his e-mail.

Bill Keller and the New Yoirk times should NOT have published the expose on the NSA Surveillance Program either. This program was another secret program to protect Americans. Is there any secret or classified program that Bill Keller and/or the New York Times will not print?

Flap has the answer: The Muhammad Cartoons

With regards to an anti-Bush base and their correspondence, who from the Democrat Left has criticized the President for the SWIFT Program. They have not. They are laying low and are silent. What is Keller talking about? The Kossaks?

Still, Keller added, “a lot of people have legitimate and genuine feelings about this, and I don’t mean to belittle that.”

This means a whole bunch of folks are cancelling their subscriptions and Keller wants them back. Flap bets they are losing some advertisers as well. Why? Dead Americans from a terrorist attack usually do not buy products advertised in the newspaper.

Keller said he spent more than an hour in late May listening to Treasury Secretary John Snow argue against publication of the story. He said that he also got a call from Negroponte, the national intelligence czar, and that three former officials also made the case to Times editors: Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, chairmen of the 9/11 commission, and Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania — an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.

“The main argument they made to me, extensively and at length, besides that the program is valuable and legitimate, was that there are a lot of banks that are very sensitive to public opinion, and if this sees the light of day, they may stop cooperating,” Keller said.

He acknowledged, as did the Times article, that there was no clear evidence that the banking program was illegal. But, he said, “there were officials who talked to us who were uncomfortable with the legality of this program, and others who were uncomfortable with the sense that what started as a temporary program had acquired a kind of permanence.

So, the anonymous sources (officials) were uncomfortable with the legality of the program and its permanence but a bi-partisan group of government and former government officials are not and who does Keller find pursuasive? Yet Keller acknowledges that there is NO clear evidence that the SWIFT program is illegal. And why did he publish?

Was it a SCOOP? Was it dreams of another Pulitzer Prize?

Graphic Courtesy of Michelle Malkin

“I always start with the premise that the question is, why should we not publish? Publishing information is our job. What you really need is a reason to withhold information.”

There is the answer to Flap’s previous question. The New York Times has NO SHAME. Like the true “Yellow Journalism” rag of William Randolf Hearst they will print ANYTHING – that suits the business or personal interests of the newspaper. America and Americans be DAMNED.

Well, Americans can do something…….

STOP BUYING THEIR NEWSPAPER AND ASSOCIATED PRODUCTS.

Hugh Hewitt has The Times Two Meltdown, Cont.

Howard Kurtz atetmpts to rally some sympathy for the Times Two, and unfortunately stumbles into the Bay of Pigs Club, from which exit is almost impossible. Once you buy into the use of a “might have been” (and a mightily mischaracterized one at that) to justify the publication of secrets that could help terrorists elude capture, there’s no argument left because the “Bay of Pigs” mantra is an appeal to fiction, not to fact or history.

No major media outlet in the United States has ever knowingly, and over the objection of the United States government, ever published classified information that could assist the nation’s enemies. Period. What the New York Times has done –and the Los Angeles Times copied– is without precedent, which is why a Congressional response is so necessary, and hopefully forthcoming soon.

Kurtz notes that “[m]ost Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, lay low,” adding that “Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sidestepped a question yesterday about whether the Times should be prosecuted.”

In fact, lawmakers of both parties are for the most part “laying low,” and that is not distinguishing them in the eyes of the public interested in seriousness about the war.

If it is a war -and it is– and if the disclosures helped our enemies –and they did– Congress should draft, debate and vote on resolutions condemning the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times by name.

Patterico via See-Dubya comment:

From Howard Kurtzâ€™s column on how we partisan meanies are vilifying the poor New York Times for doing their job comes this gem from NYT editor Bill Keller:

â€œI always start with the premise that the question is, why should we not publish? Publishing information is our job. What you really need is a reason to withhold information.â€

Hmmmâ€¦how about, oh, because itâ€™s against the fâ€”-ing law, jackwipe.

Does he not understand that it is illegal to disseminate classified information? Does that word mean something different in New York?

Michelle Malkin says that this is not the first time that the New York Times has aided and abetted terrorist organizations and has a list of New York Times advertisers to express displeasure. A protest in front of the New York Times is being organized.

Stay tuned for House and Senate resolutions condemning the New York and Los Angeles Times. And hearings should be scheduled?

Where is the GOP leadership?

Graphic Courtesy of The Peoples Cube