|
I'm not buying this b.s. from the GOP/NYT coalition.
There is no doubt that the NYT passes every Administration-critical story across the desk of the Whitehouse (likely Rove's desk). If they didn't they would have published the NSA Wiretapping story when they first had it (during the 2004 election cycle). They also would have never let the admin use them as a WMD mouthpiece. The NYT has basically been a propaganda machine for BushCo. And they are not the only "liberal" media doing so. CBS withheld more than one story when asked by the Pentagon, again, conveniently during an election cycle.
So there is no doubt they cleared this story with Rove himself.
So why all the outrage? To fire up the Republican base, which seems to be having trouble firing up these days.
Let's see what's been in the news lately:
WE FOUND THE WMDS (whoops no, we didn't) WE CAUGHT THE TERRORISTS IN FLORIDA (why are we fighting them over there?) WE WON'T LET ANYONE BURN THE FLAG (which is way more important than voting on things like stem-cell research)
By bringing up this issue, the Repubs think they have three issues to beat up in one: 1. "Liberal" media 2. Leaks of classified material 3. Return the debate to the War on Terra
But if they talk about the "liberal" media any more than they have, they are going to have a real credibility issue given the fact that the NYT covered up the NSA story during the election, they served as the WMD mouthpiece and Dan Rather has left CBS. Mission accomplished already.
They can't really bash the media for leaks after Plamegate... they can try, but given the fact that Plame was working on monitoring IRAN's NUCLEAR PROGRAM and the BushCo blew their cover and ruined the operation, they have no credibility here either.
And finally, after nearly giving our ports away to the Middle East, demonstrating that our borders are completely open and that we couldn't save ourselves from a hurricane with 5 days warning let alone a terrorist attack with no heads-up, they've lost a little credibility here too.
This story will fail just like the last three, but the sad thing is just that. Americans won't be outraged about the fact that the gov't is now monitoring their financial transactions. That's the real tragedy here. Americans have given up because all the smoke that is thrown up around these issues. We've given up freedom to allow the gov't to spy on us. The Republicans have won the war on terror all right. The only problem is, they've won it FOR THE TERRORISTS, and lost it for America.
|