Glenn Greenwald
Friday June 6, 2008 06:51 EDT
NYT front page reports on McCain's reversal on spying, executive power
On Wednesday, I documented John McCain's complete reversal of views -- in the last six months alone -- on FISA, warrantless eavesdropping and executive power. McCain's diametrically opposite views were contained in a questionnaire McCain completed for The Boston Globe last December (wherein he rejected many of the Bush/Cheney theories of presidential omnipotence and warrantless eavesdropping) and then a statement McCain issued this week to National Review (wherein he embraced those same theories in order to persuade the Right that he approves of and would continue Bush's lawless surveillance policies).
The reporter who circulated the spying/executive power questionnaire in December to all of the candidates for the Globe was Charlie Savage, one of the very few national reporters who has reported continuously and insightfully about Bush's executive power abuses over the past several years. Savage won the Pulitzer Prize for his work exposing Bush's radical use of signing statements to vest himself with the power to break the law.
In what might be one of the most significant and under-noted media developments of the year, it was announced last month that Savage was leaving the Globe and joining The New York Times. Already, that move has paid dividends, as the NYT today publishes a front-page story by Savage detailing McCain's reversal this week. The article begins this way:
A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.more...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/06/mccain/
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