Is Keller In A Pinch?

While New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller is taking the heat over a decision to publish classified information, a reader points out it's appropriate to re-visit this below regarding New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. aka Pinch.

There Arthur was arrested twice at antiwar demonstrations. After the second time, the young activist memorably told his father, a former first lieutenant of Marines, that were a single American soldier to come upon a single North Vietnamese soldier, he would prefer that it be the American who was shot.

And while it's a stretch, an email I received points out it is interesting to ponder what might happen if formal action against the New York Times were to take place, given that the paper is controlled by the family in a far from usual stock arrangement. Such an occurrence could lend added weight for the call to dissolve the Class B stock arrangement and give control of the paper to the common shareholders.

For a good discussion of pertinent law, see this previous post by Andrew McCarthy at NRO on the heels of the recent Washington Post affair, when they too published classified information.

Comments

[annie]

Are these people idiots or what?

And why are the people of New York and Washington putting up with these nuts, when they are playing into the hands of the very people who have most likely got New York and Washington high on the list of cities they would most like to attack first.

But then, am I really surprised, these are left wing liberals with their own agenda (namely to bring down President Bush, no matter what!).

Once again, I say they are idiots!!

May God help us all.

[jamie]

The "idiots" are people who discount a long-respected publication like this purely because of words saId in anger from a son to a father in his youth. If we are going to hold everyone accountable for every dumb thing they ever said in anger to their parents, then no one is going to have any credibility. Especially when the words were said 40 years ago. You are being as silly now as he was then.

[jamie]

The "idiots" are people who discount a long-respected publication like this purely because of words saId in anger from a son to a father in his youth. If we are going to hold everyone accountable for every dumb thing they ever said in anger to their parents, then no one is going to have any credibility. Especially when the words were said 40 years ago. You are being as silly now as he was then.

[jamie]

The "idiots" are people who discount a long-respected publication like this purely because of words saId in anger from a son to a father in his youth. If we are going to hold everyone accountable for every dumb thing they ever said in anger to their parents, then no one is going to have any credibility. Especially when the words were said 40 years ago. You are being as silly now as he was then.

[jamie]

The "idiots" are people who discount a long-respected publication like this purely because of words saId in anger from a son to a father in his youth. If we are going to hold everyone accountable for every dumb thing they ever said in anger to their parents, then no one is going to have any credibility. Especially when the words were said 40 years ago. You are being as silly now as he was then.

[Cedarford]

No matter how many times you say it was a long-ago folly of youth, Jamie(4X so far), the question is relevant to the owner/publisher of the NYTimes.

"Do you still prefer now - having the American die, over the enemy?

Are your sympathies the same now as they were then for the North Vietnamese? Does that explain, through the actions of your employees, why you have taken so gleefully to exposing national security secrets damaging to the nation, and why you have run over 110 smear stories on the US soldiers and CIA employees in the last 5 years on your Front Page???"

It is "only silly!" if Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger's Leftist views have changed, and he has a different view now. Which, from his repeated actions and policy directions to his employees like Bill Keller, Eric Lichbau, and James Risen at the NYTimes - appears to be in doubt.

[annie]

Er,

Do you realise you keep repeating yourself Jamie??

That's the first sign of 'you know what' so if I were you I'd go see the doc!!

[jamie]

You both proved your mental midget status by not realizing that the repetitve posts were a computer glitch. Apparently, the obvious is difficult for you to grasp.

Beyond that, you indulge in nothing more substantive than demagoguery, which is the last bastion of wingnut scoundrels.

[rwilymz]

Jamie, mi hombrito, you might have a point if the 40-years-removed actions were not the grown-up version of the petulant whining of the faux-omniscient "angry youth".

Frankly, son, the NYT rationalizations read just like a college sophomore with two whole semesters of political science under his belt while lecturing career diplomats. You fail the sniff-test.

That notwithstanding, the NYT itself has a point: they are not the determiners of national security. Now, during WWII, a newspaper finding themselves in possession of such information would ask the administration if publishing it would be okay. Not today -- and they aren't really obliged to. The NYT loses a point on style and two points on circumspection.

But the crucial question is: where is the NYT getting this? This is the third times [in my reluctant tallying] where the NYT broke with leaks. Are they spying on the government?

And when are they going to change their masthead to "All the news that's fit to embarrass Bush"?