TOP ICS TO BE COVERED IN ENSUING COL
WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE N.Y. TIMES? –
DON’T BUY IT!!
by
Ken Eliasberg
Only 2 points are left to deal with regarding the treachery of the Times in exposing the SWIFT program – (1) an evaluation of the pathetic defense offered up by one of their columnists, the Bush-hating, left-wing flack, Paul Krugman, and (2) what should be done about this betrayal (not merely of journalistic integrity, but of their country).
Krugman.- Paul Krugman is probably the last man I would call on if either objectivity or fairness was what I was looking for, let alone truth. In a rather flimsy piece of self-serving journalism (?), Krugman tries to come to the defense of the Times by waving the flag (a shameless act for someone on the left, where the flag customarily receives such a luke warm reception). In a piece entitled Trying to remove all checks and balances, published on July 10th (which also ran in the Inland Empire in a local paper), Krugman tries to bootstrap the Times’s positionby using that old approach that the best defense is a good offense. As you can tell from the title of his column, he’s trying to suggest that the government’s criticism of the Times’s action is an effort to muzzle, if not stifle, dissent. His lead sentence tells you everything you need to know about either the direction or the substance of his argument. It reads as follows:
“The nature of the right-wing attack on The New York Times –an attack not on the newspaper’s judgment, but on its motives – seems to have startled many people in the news media”. Actually, I don’t recall seeing one sentence so laden with misleading and inaccurate information (and I read Zogby’s column every week). First of all, I think almost everyone who has commented on this matter has questioned the Times’s judgment. But more to the point, when the top newspaper in the country comes up with something so patently out of line, would it be more appropriate to attribute it to stupidity? After all, this is The New York Times - as noted, the gold standard of journalism. How many critics would buy an argument along the lines of “oops, we goofed?” No, while many (including this author) have questioned the Gray Lady’s judgment, only someone who fell off a turnip truck yesterday would believe that this was no more than a judgmental blunder.
However, if you might have thought that questioning the Times’s motives might have been out of line, Krugman goes on to clearly demonstrate what their motives were – to bring down George Bush in any way that they could. He advises:
“In the past few months a series of revelations have confirmed what should have been obvious a long time ago: The Bush administration and the movement it leads [what movement might that be – the U.S. government and/or the Republican Party?] have been engaged in an authoritarian project, an effort to remove all the checks and balances that have heretofore constrained the executive branch.”
Krugman rambles on (demonstrating all the way that it was clearly the Times’s motivation, not its judgment that was behind their decision to compromise national security in this appalling manner), noting
“For I think that most Americans still believe in the principle that
the president isn’t a king, that he isn’t entitled to operate without checks and balances [since when is The New York Times the check and balance; I thought it was Congress and the Courts?]. And President Bush is especially unworthy of our trust, because on every front - - - -he has consistently played politics with national security” (no one has done this more frequently, more irresponsibly, and in a more dangerous manner than the Times).
His entire column, rather than prove that only judgment, not motivation, was involved, demonstrates quite clearly that the Times’s motivation – to damage George Bush, even if to do so jeopardized national security – was the controlling consideration in their decision to essentially destroy this program. Their action may have been stupid; in my opinon, it went well beyond an error of judgment – it was, in my opinion, treasonous, and nothing in Krugman’s pathetic screed rises to the level of a remotely adequate justification for this dirtiest of deeds.
What to do? Frankly, while I would love to prosecute the Times for what they have done, I’m not sure that the tools are available to take them to task in court. We appear not to have put adequate legislation on the books since the Espionage Act of 1917, which does not seem up to the task. Moreover, for the very reasons that FDR did not prosecute the Chicago Tribune when, in the middle of WWII, they published news that we had broken the Japanese codes, thus enabling us to tap into their intelligence. FDR reasoned, that such a prosecution, even if efficacious, might further amplify the methods that we had employed in breaking the codes, as well as magnifying the whole matter (a reason why many refuse to redress their wrongs in court).
However, that said, the guys I want – in jail – are the government employees who leaked this information. These people have not merely violated their oath of office; they have betrayed their country. So, what would I do? I would pursue Lichtblau and James Risen, the reporters who prespared this story, with every legal tool at my disposal. And, if they refused to cooperate with such a legal effort – i.e., by revealing their sources - I would hold them in contempt and incarcerate them for as long as it takes. We just cannot afford to countenance government leaks of any nature, let alone leaks that compromise in any way our national security. Moreover, we cannot, and should not, tolerate the arrogance of the New York Times which has arrogated on to itself the final decision of who calls the shots on national security. I don’t recall having voted for them?
Finally, I would resort to the only tool that is always individually available to each of us – DON’T BUY THE NEW YORK TIMES!!!