Monday, April 17, 2006

It may be the New York Times' lowest point

Sunday the New York Times may just have reached its lowest point in history. Never has an American newspaper orchestrated such a masterful plan of deception and disinformation as the Times. Their Sunday editorial has more lies, half-truths, and distortions I halfway expected them to define what the word "is" meant.

And this president (The Times) has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his (their) political purposes. He (We) has (have) run one of the most secretive administrations (newspaper) in American history, consistently withholding information and vital documents not just from the public, but also from Congress.

I took the liberty of editing the quote to add a dimension of truth. It's amazing to me that the Times would claim that they are any different than the Bush administration. The Times has reported so many stories poorly or just plain falsely that their corrections page is a running joke. Just recently they ran a completely false story claiming that FISA judges interviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee disagreed with the President's authority under Article II of the Constitution to authorize warrantless wiretapping. In fact the complete opposite was true, and would be evident to someone who was not an idiot, or interested in reporting the truth - neither of which can be claimed by the Times. "Consistently withholding information" would be an excellent way to describe this declining American newspaper. Ironic, isn't it?

This fits the pattern of Mr. Bush's original sales pitch on the Iraq war — hyping the intelligence that bolstered his case and suppressing the intelligence that undercut it. In this case, Mr. Libby was authorized to talk about claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa and not more reliable evidence to the contrary.

I wonder what evidence to the contrary the Times is referring to? Maybe Joe Wilson's editorial to the Times about his findings that Iraq was not trying to get uranium from Niger? That same editorial that directly contradicts Wilson's public testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee? The only "evidence to the contrary" is an article the Times itself printed that secured for all time both the Times and Joe Wilson's inability to report the truth.

About a month before, Mr. Bush rushed to announce that American forces had found evidence of a biological weapons program in Iraq — trailers that could have been used to make doomsday devices. We now know, from a report in The Washington Post, that a Pentagon team actually on the ground in Iraq inspecting the trailers had concluded two days earlier that they were nothing of the kind.

Discredited story of the week. This bit of bad reporting was so one week ago, and rehashes the rehashing of a story that is three years old. For some bizarre reason the Times uses this as evidence to corroborate their theory that George Bush is the Antichrist, and for some reason it is allowed to go on.

Then about the National Intelligence Estimate:

Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified.

Are these people idiots? What do they think the President can do? It's amazing to me that a individual can pick up this paper, read this editorial, and not conclude that the editorial writers are either stupid, ill-informed, or agenda-driven against the administration.

This messy episode leaves more questions than answers, so it is imperative that two things happen soon. First, the federal prosecutor in the Libby case should release the transcripts of what Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney said when he questioned them. And the Senate Intelligence Committee must report publicly on how Mr. Bush and his team used the flawed intelligence on Iraq.

In this final slap of irony the Times claims that the Senate Intelligence Committee should report on the intelligence-gathering done in the run-up to the Iraq war. Not only have they done this a number of times on a number of different levels clearly stating that the intelligence about Iraq's WMD program existed and this same intelligence was reported by the European community and distributed throughout congress as well as within the administration, but the Times refuses to publish the fact that the Intelligence Committee received information contrary to what was published in their own editorial page about Joe Wilson and his trip to Niger! Why would the committee bother to report anything if the Times only prints what fits into their version of the "truth?!"

The Times, once a bastion of knowledge and reporting has fallen off the cliff of insane liberal propaganda, Bush derangement syndrome, and general dishonesty directed at discrediting this administration. A new low? How bad can this paper get?

No comments: