The WH is not happy with the Press.
This is really a crumbling of democracy as we know it if the WH begins removing newspapers from the press corps if they make the president unhappy. Where are we going, and with an old story and a story that was made public ages ago, according to some on Capitol Hill? The story follows.
Tony Snow Tells E&P: 'NYT' Deserves Special Criticism
By Joe Strupp
Published: June 27, 2006 12:45 PM ET
NEW YORK White House Press Secretary Tony Snow told E&P today that The New York Times deserves the brunt of criticism for disclosure of a secret bank records monitoring program, even though two other newspapers -- The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times -- reported the same story at almost the same time.
But he added that, no matter what the National Review argues, the Times will not be losing its White House credentials.
Snow, along with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, on Monday criticized the Times for publishing the story despite administration efforts to halt it. He told E&P that the criticism was directed at the New York paper because it "was way ahead of the other two and started [reporting on the story] much earlier. The other two were playing catch up."
Reminded that the administration had reached out to both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times with requests to hold the story, Snow repeated his assertion. "The other newspapers were not involved to the same extent," he added. "The Times is really pulling the train on this one."
Snow noted that the Treasury Department had been in talks with the New York Times for several weeks trying to get them to withhold publication, a fact previously confirmed to E&P by Times reporter Eric Lichtblau, one of two reporters on the story. He also said that the delay allowed the other papers to catch up.
"They had been working with the Times for a long time, more than a month," Snow said. "It had been a considerable period of time."
When asked why the administration had not asked the Wall Street Journal to hold off publication as it had with the other two papers, Snow said he did not know, referring such inquiries to Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tony Fratto. "I don't think they did because the Journal was so late to the story," Snow said. "But I don't know."
Fratto could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
Although both Executive Editor Bill Keller of The New York Times and Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet have written explanations to readers about why they published the stories, the Journal's editors have remained silent on the subject.
Journal managing editor Paul Steiger has not been reachable for comment since Monday, but Journal spokesman Robert Christie said he knew of no effort by the administration to halt his paper's story prior to publication.
The paper's Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot declined to comment when asked if he planned to editorialize on the Journal's decision to publish the story, saying in an e-mail message through Christie that he does not discuss pending editorial subjects. Whatever he produces will be interesting, given the paper's conservative and pro-Bush editorial line.
Snow declined to comment on other criticism of The New York Times from outside the White House, such as New York Republican congressman Peter King's assertion that the paper should be prosecuted and National Review's Monday editorial urging that the Times' White House press credentials be revoked. "They are not going to lose their credentials," he said.
"Congress acts on its own without White House direction," he added about King's comments. "I don't want to get in any further on this than we have. We have said what we are going to say."
I guess Bush and Cheney decided that leaks to the New York Times were no longer kosher when their go to girl, Judith Miller, got canned. Of course, Judy wasn't the only member of the now "traitorous" New York Times to benefit from White House largesse. Doug Jehl published a piece on August 2, 2004 that exposed an Al Qaeda informant:
The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the Central Intelligence Agency to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday, according to senior American officials.
The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages.
A senior United States official would not confirm or deny that Mr. Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information. But the official said ''documentary evidence'' found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday.
The White House also used the New York Times to spread lies about the state of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Remember the September 8, 2002 piece by Michael Gordon and Judith Miller? They reported that:
More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today.
In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were stopped.
The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the aluminum tubes had persuaded American intelligence experts that they were meant for
Iraq's nuclear program, officials said, and that the latest attempt to ship the material had taken place in recent months.
And who can forget that Vice President Cheney instructed his Chief of Staff, the intrepid Scooter Libby, to leak misleading portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times' Judith Miller. NPR's David Greene reported that:
Former vice presidential aide Lewis Libby, indicted for leaking a CIA agent's identity, has testified that any classified information he may have leaked to a reporter was authorized by President Bush through the vice president. The claim is included in court documents released Thursday.
Libby told a grand jury that classified information he may have leaked to a New York Times reporter was authorized for use by President Bush, acting through Vice President Dick Cheney. Lewis is awaiting trial on charges that he lied to the grand jury, which was investigating the leak of the agent's identity to the media.
We should also remember that the New York Times was not the only friendly outlet for planting "news". White House officials turned to Time Magazine and the Chicago Sun Times in shopping information about Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA officer. For this White House, leaking classified information that damages national security is okay as long as it can be used to save the President's political reputation.
President Bush crying about "leaks" to the New York Times is like listening to former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss complain about sexual promiscuity. Sorry George, we ain't buying your song and dance.
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Jun 27, 2006 -- 07:39:53 PM EST | Tags:
On June 28, 2006 - 8:52am Maureen Hay said:
Not to mention that the NYTimes may have won him the election by sitting on the no-warrant evesdropping on Americans story until after it was over.
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On June 28, 2006 - 6:53am davis13 said:
Let's see.
Bush, Cheney, Rove and company reveal a whole CIA front company, all it's employees, (some of who apparently worked on WMDs of all things) compromised anyone who ever worked for them or ever cooperated with them in other countries, all for political revenge and they demand an investigation into the NYT?
Uh huh.
Rightwingers and their so-called morals and values are just amazing. Nauseating too.
Situational ethics rule.
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On June 28, 2006 - 8:32am Rick B said:
Hey! Their nation-damaging leaks notwithstanding, they have GOOD morales and values! They are real patriots! They tried real hard to pass a Constitutional amendment that makes flag-burning a crime!
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On June 27, 2006 - 11:57pm Clay Allison said:
We've gotten to the point where obvious hypocrisy doesn't even register with anyone. The crew that had a hissy fit over Clinton's lying doesn't even blink when Bush is caught in lies. Conservatives who spent their lives working to keep government small and out of our lives are now trying to justify enormous defecits, growth in government, and a super duper big brother state. Iraq is Vietnam 2000.
The mask is off. We know the score. Only the media plods along pretending that things are the way that they have always been.
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On June 27, 2006 - 11:15pm Libertine said:
The truly pathetic and digusting thing is that our troops and the Iraqi civilians being killed in Iraq are being exploited for partisan political gain. And unfortunately a good deal of the MSM is along for the ride...
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On June 27, 2006 - 10:46pm islandliberal said:
President Bush crying about "leaks" to the New York Times is like listening to former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss complain about sexual promiscuity.
Priceless. Just plain priceless.