The NY Times miscalculation

John McIntyre:

This story is a further example of how the political environment can change very quickly. President Bush was already looking better after two weeks of positive news (holding CA-50, killing Zarqawi, Rove cleared, a new government in Iraq) before the New York Times irresponsibly disclosed details of a top secret program aimed at protecting the nation from future terrorist attacks. The program was legal, effective, and had strong bi-partisan support: both 9/11 Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton and Rep. John Murtha (Pa.) strongly urged the Times not to disclose the program.

Politically, this is a clear winner for Bush and the GOP. The issue plays to Bush's strengths and continues to paint the picture of the President as a stalwart fighter, protecting America's safety while the left-wing press does their best to undermine as many successful anti-terror programs as possible.

The Times and the far left are so completely out of touch with where the country is on national security and terrorism issues they probably thought this disclosure would hurt Bush politically. They are clueless.

...

What this story does is drop the NY Times into the category with CBS News, not because they used bogus documents to attack the President, but because they reveal information to help the enemy in order to attack the President. In both cases the news organizations were so eager to hurt the President that they lost their morals and professionalism. While the Times seems very much on the defensive with Keller et.al. looking like Rather and Mapes, the White House is not really going after these people other than rhetorically.

Tony Snow has said that the NY Times will not lose its White House press pass and Attorney General Gonzales does not sound eager to prosecute the paper. However an indirect approach would be very effective and the NY Times would be essentially defenseless since their appeal of the Judy Miller jailing for contempt made the precedent. The reporters and editors should be brought before a grand jury and be required to reveal the names of the people who clearly broke the law by talking to them.

Don't be surprised if the source is a Democrat on a House or Senate committee that has been briefed about the program. If that turns out to be the case the blowback could be significant.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more