The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
"Has the Grey Lady Turned the President Yellow?"; Is Bush Afraid of the Big Bad NY Times?
Unfortunately, I could not find much to argue with today in Jim Pinkerton's calling out President Bush. And I really, really wanted to find some flaw in his reasoning. I am hoping against hope that Bush's failure to act thus far is because Bush is holding his cards close to the vest until the perfect moment--when he will strike down these seditious enemies in our midst. But I fear Pinkerton's analysis in Newsday may be closer to the mark. If so, this means that we have to create enough of a firestorm that the President will change his mind.
I am as serious as I can possibly be when I say that I believe to my very bones that lives are at stake here. Enough is enough: It is time for our President to make a principled stand against the leakers and (especially) the sources of those leaks--no matter where that leads. Heads MUST roll. And--just in case you didn't notice--the Times published ANOTHER "classified" story over the weekend: that being the story about General Casey's classified briefing on possible future troop deployments. And THIS coming AFTER the firestorm over the Financial Leaks! Are you kidding me? These guys are not intimidated at all--they fully intend to keep going without missing a beat! Unless WE THE PEOPLE stop it.
What is needed most here is a bona fide groundswell of thousands of people like you and I--and the Congress, and the talk shows, etc.--to mobilize and light a fire under this President until it shakes him out of his apparent terror of the "Old Grey Lady". If that is what it takes so be it. I am ready to dive in; anyone else for a swim? Or are we just going to sit and watch as an American newspaper sells its own country down the river? If we do, then we are as guilty as the President of inaction. The facts are: if enough of us act, action will be taken. Are you up to it? For our men and women overseas? For your children and grandchildren? If not now, when?
It really seems a shame that it has come to this: once upon a time this President actually stood for doing the RIGHT thing, no matter what the consequences. Not only that, but--unlike his father who allowed himself to be blown about by every iota of a change in the political wind--Bush the Son acted on principle-even when the polls said otherwise; Why the hell do you think we re-elected him: for his public speaking ability??
So answer me this: Where is THAT man today? Where has he gone? Our country needs that man back. But what I am seeing lately is not the decisiveness and will of a strong President--rather it appears to be someone who is so scared is numbers might drop further that he has lost his nerve completely--and he appears to be governing accordingly. The real tragedy of this is that the American people know how wrong this NYT outrage is and we collectively are at long last showing genuine disgust and anger that it has come to this. The mood is ideal right now for a bold move against both the leakers and the Times. Personally I think that the public would LOVE it if the President went after these traitors. We would rally around this President just like we did after 9/11--and just like the Dems rallied around Clinton when he was impeached. Talk about firing up the base!
But no--so far, all we see is rhetoric; and rhetoric ain't enough folks. Not this time. As we all know, a decision not to act is still a decision; the WRONG decision. Let's help our President show some backbone. Let's bring back the George W. Bush who stood before Congress after 9/11 and said Bring It On. And please--let us not waste time. We must hurry--before it is too late for all of us. Mr. President: tear down the Old Grey Lady's facade. The leakers must pay.
But although the Times is open about its willingness - make that eagerness - to publish secrets in wartime, it doesn't appear that the Justice Department plans on doing anything in response. And so it's fair to ask: Does the Bush administration have a serious plan for winning the international war on terror, or is it drifting down the path of least political resistance - and thus to defeat.
Friday, the Times printed details about federal surveillance of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, based in Belgium. The U.S. government's goal has been to uncover terror-financing networks, which are no small phenomena: Two years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a report showing that Saudi Arabia, alone, gives $12 billion a year to Islamic "charities."
Reacting to the Times story, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the financial surveillance was "absolutely essential." And apparently the SWIFT-tapping program has scored some significant successes; the feds captured the mastermind of the 2002 bombing in Bali that killed more than 200 people, predominantly Australians, as well as a Brooklyn man who laundered huge cash transfers to al-Qaida agents in Pakistan.
And, of course, the results in the last five years, since 9/11, speak for themselves: Something has been going right on the homeland security front. The recent arrests of seven men in Miami, accused of plotting, however vaguely, to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, is a reminder that homeland securitizers are vigilant.
Much of the political reaction to the Times story has been fierce: Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the House homeland security committee, called on the attorney general to "begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times - the reporters, the editors and the publisher."
King added, "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous." Similar criticism, using the T-word, chorused across cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere.
Yet all of this might sound a bit familiar, because the Times' latest revelations come on the heels of similar Times revelations last December, concerning the government's effort to wiretap terrorists' phone calls. Those earlier disclosures led Gabriel Schoenfeld, writing in the March issue of Commentary magazine, to assert that it was "perfectly clear" that the Times could and should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917.
After 6,700 words of close legal analysis, Schoenfeld asked whether "we as a nation can afford to permit the reporters and editors of a great newspaper to become the unelected authority that determines for all of us what is a legitimate secret and what is not." Schoenfeld's answer: "Like the Constitution itself, the First Amendment's protections of freedom of the press are not a suicide pact." In other words, stop the Times. But now the Times has done it again.
So why hasn't the Bush administration done anything? One answer, of course, is that the wheels of justice grind slow - and unseen, at least for a while. But a better answer comes from Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, who argues that the Bush administration has been "intimidated" by the media and by allied critics in Congress. That would explain the Boston Globe story on Monday, detailing how the Bushies, who once asserted that the phone taps were perfectly legal just the way they were, are now willing to accept closer Congressional supervision. So score a media-political victory for the Times.
And so the Gray Lady has every reason to think it will win this latest battle, too. The fate of the war on terror, of course, is another story - but the Times is too busy crushing George W. Bush to worry much about that.
I am as serious as I can possibly be when I say that I believe to my very bones that lives are at stake here. Enough is enough: It is time for our President to make a principled stand against the leakers and (especially) the sources of those leaks--no matter where that leads. Heads MUST roll. And--just in case you didn't notice--the Times published ANOTHER "classified" story over the weekend: that being the story about General Casey's classified briefing on possible future troop deployments. And THIS coming AFTER the firestorm over the Financial Leaks! Are you kidding me? These guys are not intimidated at all--they fully intend to keep going without missing a beat! Unless WE THE PEOPLE stop it.
What is needed most here is a bona fide groundswell of thousands of people like you and I--and the Congress, and the talk shows, etc.--to mobilize and light a fire under this President until it shakes him out of his apparent terror of the "Old Grey Lady". If that is what it takes so be it. I am ready to dive in; anyone else for a swim? Or are we just going to sit and watch as an American newspaper sells its own country down the river? If we do, then we are as guilty as the President of inaction. The facts are: if enough of us act, action will be taken. Are you up to it? For our men and women overseas? For your children and grandchildren? If not now, when?
It really seems a shame that it has come to this: once upon a time this President actually stood for doing the RIGHT thing, no matter what the consequences. Not only that, but--unlike his father who allowed himself to be blown about by every iota of a change in the political wind--Bush the Son acted on principle-even when the polls said otherwise; Why the hell do you think we re-elected him: for his public speaking ability??
So answer me this: Where is THAT man today? Where has he gone? Our country needs that man back. But what I am seeing lately is not the decisiveness and will of a strong President--rather it appears to be someone who is so scared is numbers might drop further that he has lost his nerve completely--and he appears to be governing accordingly. The real tragedy of this is that the American people know how wrong this NYT outrage is and we collectively are at long last showing genuine disgust and anger that it has come to this. The mood is ideal right now for a bold move against both the leakers and the Times. Personally I think that the public would LOVE it if the President went after these traitors. We would rally around this President just like we did after 9/11--and just like the Dems rallied around Clinton when he was impeached. Talk about firing up the base!
But no--so far, all we see is rhetoric; and rhetoric ain't enough folks. Not this time. As we all know, a decision not to act is still a decision; the WRONG decision. Let's help our President show some backbone. Let's bring back the George W. Bush who stood before Congress after 9/11 and said Bring It On. And please--let us not waste time. We must hurry--before it is too late for all of us. Mr. President: tear down the Old Grey Lady's facade. The leakers must pay.
Has the Gray Lady turned the president yellow?
Should The New York Times get the death penalty or merely a jail sentence? If the Times is guilty of treason in wartime, then obviously the "Gray Lady" should be wearing prison stripes - at best.But although the Times is open about its willingness - make that eagerness - to publish secrets in wartime, it doesn't appear that the Justice Department plans on doing anything in response. And so it's fair to ask: Does the Bush administration have a serious plan for winning the international war on terror, or is it drifting down the path of least political resistance - and thus to defeat.
Friday, the Times printed details about federal surveillance of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, based in Belgium. The U.S. government's goal has been to uncover terror-financing networks, which are no small phenomena: Two years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a report showing that Saudi Arabia, alone, gives $12 billion a year to Islamic "charities."
Reacting to the Times story, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the financial surveillance was "absolutely essential." And apparently the SWIFT-tapping program has scored some significant successes; the feds captured the mastermind of the 2002 bombing in Bali that killed more than 200 people, predominantly Australians, as well as a Brooklyn man who laundered huge cash transfers to al-Qaida agents in Pakistan.
And, of course, the results in the last five years, since 9/11, speak for themselves: Something has been going right on the homeland security front. The recent arrests of seven men in Miami, accused of plotting, however vaguely, to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, is a reminder that homeland securitizers are vigilant.
Much of the political reaction to the Times story has been fierce: Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the House homeland security committee, called on the attorney general to "begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times - the reporters, the editors and the publisher."
King added, "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous." Similar criticism, using the T-word, chorused across cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere.
Yet all of this might sound a bit familiar, because the Times' latest revelations come on the heels of similar Times revelations last December, concerning the government's effort to wiretap terrorists' phone calls. Those earlier disclosures led Gabriel Schoenfeld, writing in the March issue of Commentary magazine, to assert that it was "perfectly clear" that the Times could and should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917.
After 6,700 words of close legal analysis, Schoenfeld asked whether "we as a nation can afford to permit the reporters and editors of a great newspaper to become the unelected authority that determines for all of us what is a legitimate secret and what is not." Schoenfeld's answer: "Like the Constitution itself, the First Amendment's protections of freedom of the press are not a suicide pact." In other words, stop the Times. But now the Times has done it again.
So why hasn't the Bush administration done anything? One answer, of course, is that the wheels of justice grind slow - and unseen, at least for a while. But a better answer comes from Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, who argues that the Bush administration has been "intimidated" by the media and by allied critics in Congress. That would explain the Boston Globe story on Monday, detailing how the Bushies, who once asserted that the phone taps were perfectly legal just the way they were, are now willing to accept closer Congressional supervision. So score a media-political victory for the Times.
And so the Gray Lady has every reason to think it will win this latest battle, too. The fate of the war on terror, of course, is another story - but the Times is too busy crushing George W. Bush to worry much about that.
