Keller On Leaky Reporting

Read the full but brief text of an email on reporting on the Bush administration from NY Times Executive Editor, Bill Keller.

"I'm not sure journalists fully appreciate the threat confronting us -- The Times in the eavesdropping case, the Post for its CIA prison stories, and everyone else who has tried to look behind the war on terror. Maybe we're suffering a bit of subpoena fatigue. Maybe some people are a little intimidated by the way the White House plays the soft-on-terror card.

Of course, it is also possible that putting aside how high-minded and altruistic Keller sounds, they'd be better off listening to the majority of people in this country who agree that some secrets need to be kept.

Face it, the New York Times is not ripping the lid off government corruption and greed. Basically, they are supporting a values neutral position that terrorists who lop off heads and bring down sky scrapers deserve the same protections as you and me.

Where is the Times on China? Where were they in the face of Soviet oppression when journalists just like them were confined to Gulags, or worse? And let's not even get into World War II.

Ironic that the Times consistently attacks the Bush administration for a certain you are with me, or against me attitude. The Times doesn't even bother with that, they simply dismiss a different take on questionable National Security reporting as the manufacture of slow-witted, Conservative rubes.

Ask yourself  - between elite media like the Times and the Bush administration, who actually is the more self-congratulatory and absolutely convinced of their righteousness, irrespective of dissenting opinion?

I'll make it a little easier than their crossword puzzle for all my fellow Conservative readers out there - it's the N_w Y_rk T_m_s.

My apologies to Mr. Keller for not providing a crossword rendition. See, many Conservatives are just fill in the blanks kinds 'o people. Some of us never do understand grouping together a bunch of fancy words which, in the end, simply make no sense to a country during time of war.

And lest you say I am invoking a increasingly tired old cliche there, keep in mind, it is the Times first and foremost so preoccupied with almost a running body count from Iraq, where we fight Zarqawi and al Qaida.

If Mr. Keller doesn't believe there's a war on, I'd politely suggest that, for all his experience with reportage, he simply doesn't know what one really is.

Comments

[Robert]

Our enemies already know how we are torturing them.

The White House is upset because these leaks have helped Americans learn of the despicable acts our nation commits in their name.

[jeff]

Um, it was the TIMES that demanded subpoenas, prosecutor, & the whole works over the Plame non-scandal. 3 years down the road, Fitz has never charged anyone with leaking classified info, but did come up with some Martha Stewart-type charges (ie, charges invented during the course of an investigation of a non-crime)to justify his job

[Laertes]

"they'd be better off listening to the majority of people in this country"

Because that's the job of a newspaper. To cater to the whim of a majority. Principles? What principles.

"Face it, the New York Times is not ripping the lid off government corruption and greed."

Burning a NOC for political gain is greed. Running a network of illegal secret prisons is corruption. It remains greed and corruption, even if you're in favor of it.

"Where is the Times on China?"

Give them some important documents classified by the Chinese. I bet they run with it.

"Where were they in the face of Soviet oppression when journalists just like them were confined to Gulags, or worse?"

See above.

"And let's not even get into World War II."

Good idea. One shudders to imagine the errors you'd commit.

"Ironic that the Times consistently attacks the Bush administration for a certain you are with me, or against me attitude."

You call it ironic, I call it a bulls-eye. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

"...slow-witted, Conservative rubes..."

Not words I'd choose, but I salute you nonetheless.

"Ask yourself - between elite media like the Times and the Bush administration, who actually is the more self-congratulatory and absolutely convinced of their righteousness, irrespective of dissenting opinion?"

Oooh! Oooh! I know this one!

"I'll make it a little easier than their crossword puzzle for all my fellow Conservative readers out there - it's the N_w Y_rk T_m_s."

I expect you'll want to make it easier than that. See above re: slow-witted.

"Some of us never do understand grouping together a bunch of fancy words which, in the end, simply make no sense to a country during time of war."

And in case you missed it, this war is forever. Words are so september 10. Inter arma enim silen populi, dewd.

[rwilymz]

"Running a network of illegal secret prisons is corruption. It remains greed and corruption, even if you're in favor of it."

Illegal? Based upon what law?

Secret? Not any more.

Besides, that doesn't make it "corruption". It merely renders it "same realities, different war".

Equivocation is the tool of convenience for the critics; there's enough to criticize without it, ... andwithout making yourself look foolish.