Cheney: It ‘Always Aggravated Me’ That The NYT Won A Pulitzer For Exposing Warrantless Wiretapping

[BlueJessamine]

Source: Think Progress

On Dec. 16, 2005, the New York Times published an article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, revealing that President Bush had secretly authorized the NSA to “eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States…without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.” The blockbuster article, which exposed one of the Bush administration’s biggest secrets, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006.

Discussing the wiretapping program on Bill Bennett’s radio show today, Vice President Cheney called the program “important,” adding that it “always aggravated” him that the Times was rewarded for its reporting:

CHENEY: What happened then was they had the information we had, they knew how we were doing it, they knew what we were producing through that process. But then when — Nancy Pelosi, for example, was part of that group. But then it became public. The New York Times broke the story I think in December of ‘05, won the Pulitzer for it, which always aggravated me.

With his gripes over the New York Times’ Pulitzer, Cheney joins the list of conservatives, including Bennett, who have attacked the decision to reward those who revealed the secret program:

- “They win Pulitzer Prizes - I don’t think what they did was worthy of an award - I think what they did was worthy of jail,” — radio host Bill Bennett




Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/13/cheney-nyt-pulitzer/

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Listen here:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/13/cheney-nyt-pulitzer/

[StreetKnowledge]

1. Pissed that you got exposed, Dick?

It's not their fault you guys were doing something illegal. They were doing what the media should be doing - exposing government stupidity and coverups to the citizens of the country.

[thereismore]

2. Well eat shit, Dick. nt

[niyad]

3. and yet, according to some crawl on cnn earlier, obama is supposed to LEARN from darth cheney?

[Sydnie]

4. I guess that makes us even

I think everything he did was worthy of jail.

[Botany]

7. Did I ever tell you that you are my Fav?

What makes me even more angry is that the NY Times hid this until after the 2004 election

[mrs_p]

5. i'm always aggravated

that modern medicine is good enough to keep this bastard going...

[antimatter98]

6. We had a Third World White House for eight years. n/t

[balantz]

8. Braggadocio shows me that these criminals will be protected by the elite rulers. n/t

[gratuitous]

9. I was aggravated, too, Mr. Cheney

Because the Times had this story for more than a year before they ran it in December 2005. If the Times had run the story a year earlier (in time for the 2004 election), you might be sitting in a cell somewhere right now instead of figuring out what to take and what to burn as you vacate your office.

You'd better hope that Dr. King was wrong, or that the arc of the universe bends slowly. Of course, I'm guessing that just one day of skipping your meds, and you'd slip into a nice peaceful coma and be gone within hours. Which is more of an exit strategy than you or Chimpy McCokespoon ever had for Afghanistan or Iraq.

[Zorra]

10. Dick thinks he has the right to violate the Constitution at will, and nobody has the right

to speak up about it.

Why isn't this traitor in prison yet?

[Harry Monroe]

11. And it always will aggrivate Deadeye Dick that Freedom of the Press is a right guaranteed

by the Constitution.

"It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" GWB

[Oregone]

12. Wait a minute, is what he is saying is the NYT knew all the time?!?

But didn't break it until it was politically viable?

Is that right, is that what he is claiming?

I don't know if that is true or not, but if so, they probably don't deserve the Pulitzer.

[rfranklin]

13. They withheld it to avoid "influencing" the 2004 re-installation...

of the puppet boy. Geez guys, it was just the Constitution that they were using to wipe their asses.

[biermeister]

14. It always aggravated me that Dick wasn't impeached!

[wordpix]

15. "I think what they did was worthy of jail" - that's the repuke M.O. - jail the messengers, not the

criminals who broke the laws - oh hey, that's Cheneyfudd, himself.