The Big Stall: How Bush gamed the media to get re-elected in 2004

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002576.html#more



The story in and of itself is a shocker, even as it comes right after the NBC report that an obscure Pentagon agency has monitored the activities of peaceful anti-war protestors. It's too early to gauge reaction, but we expect that it will be highly negative, not just from the usual suspects on the left but also from the vast political middle -- the heartland types who just barely propelled Bush to re-election in 2004.

And there lies the real story behind the story. Because it appears it may have been possible for the Times to publish at least some of the details of the Bush-ordered domestic spying before Nov. 2, 2004, the day that the president nailed down four more years. Although Bush won by 2 percent nationally, a switch of just 59,302 Ohio voters from Bush to John Kerry would would have put the Democrats back in the White House.

Would Bush won the election if the extent of his seemingly unconstitutional domestic spying had been known? We'll never know. For roughly a year, the White House successfully leaned on the Times to keep the story under wraps. It's not known when the Bush lobbying of the Times began. But it is clear that the warning signs about the program -- the alarm bells that likely triggered the Times investigation in the first place -- were going off by mid-2004, months before the vote.

Here's the money shot from today's Times article:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

[acmavm]

1. Nuts. They didn't 'game' anything. The media was more than happy

to accommodate these traitorous thugs.

[killbotfactory]

2. That whole "terrorist" angle is such shit

It's easy to get a warrant for that purpose, and it's not like terrorists don't already know they are probably under surveillance.

There is no reason at all to bypass the law, unless they aren't targetting terrorists in the first place.

[CJCRANE]

3. Not to mention

there were critical elements of the 9-11 commission report which were ignored by the media just before the election.

And even the Bin Laden video was misrepresented, in that if you see the whole thing it turns out that Bin Laden is quite pleased with *'s policies and what he's doing to the American economy.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Doctor_J]

5. "thought we had the Times in our back pocket"

? Are you sure you're on the right board?

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Wouldn't have mattered.

What does an electronic voting machine care about domestic spying?