A pox on the New York Times! They knew about the spying before election

[rox63]

And they didn't report it. :cry: :grr: :banghead:

<snip>
The initial Times statements did not say that the paper's internal debate began before the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election — in which Iraq and national security questions loomed large — or make any reference to Risen's book, due out Jan. 16.

But two journalists, who declined to be identified, said that editors at the paper were actively considering running the story about the wiretaps before Bush's November showdown with Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

Top editors at the paper eventually decided to hold the story. But the discussion was renewed after the election, with Risen and coauthor of the story, reporter Eric Lichtblau, joining some of the paper's editors in pushing for publication, according to the sources, who said they did not want to be identified because the Times had designated only Keller and a spokeswoman to address the matter.
<snip>

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-media20dec20,1,1432954,print.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[Mass]

1. Te NYTimes editorial team has been doing its best to have Bush

reelected, between this story, Judith Miller not saying who was the leak, and the numerous articles trying to present Bush and Kerry as equivalent.

Liberal Media???

[karynnj]

7. Bush and Kerry as equivilent - on issues

but they took it further where Jorie Wilgoren claimed Kerry was a "social loner" while Brumiller spoke of Bush in terms a groupie would use. The problem was as they were defined as the "liberal" paper people correcting for likely biases, probably took the coverage in a pro-Bush way.

Between the Miller story, deciding not to cover the wire taps, deciding not to cover more prominently the fact that Bush NEEDED A WIRE at the debates (what does this teach our children) and the fact that they never gave Kerry a break on anything, they in affect gave Bush his win. They are a paper of record (along with the W. Post), papers in the rest of the country probably noted their lack of enthusiasm. I guess their only compensation was to endorse Kerry.

Just the fact that the President CHEATED in the debates should have been an easilly understood scandal - both because he cheated and because he needed to cheat after nearly 4 years as President. (One of my kids was a student representative on the disciplinary board at her (private) high school - kids would be thrown out for this.) Imagine if KERRY would have cheated in the debates.

[ginnyinWI]

2. I don't get it

They would have had such a scoop! And didn't they actually endorse Kerry for president? I don't get it.

[TayTay]

3. Yup. I got that last week.

And remember what was in the initial article:

Several senior government officials say that when the special operation began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president.

Motherf**kers! They knew. Keller is an assh*le. This is inexcusable.

[Inuca]

4. I cannot find the right words...

... as long as I want them to stay relatively civil. DISGUSTING and APPALLING and FRUSTRATING beyond my ability to express...

[beachmom]

5. Quite literally a media conspiracy to get * re-elected!!!

And I am NOT a conspiracy kind of gal. But it is obvious who the NYT owed their loyalties to. The public was just unbelievably uninformed when they went to the polls in Nov. 2004.

You know what this means, right? This is indeed OUR Goldwater 1964 moment. The conservatives say that at that time, the MSM would not put their message out so they came up with a two pronged approach: create a right wing media and accuse the media of liberal bias, thereby indirectly promoting that right wing media. I'm sorry, but we have a case, not based on a feeling, but on facts that the media worked to sabotage the candidacy of John Kerry in 2004. Between their complicity in the run up to the Iraq War to their cover up of both the Plame case (by stonewalling the prosection's case) and this wire tap story, and add in their drumming over and over again the lie that John Kerry was reserved, aloof, and a loner (and therefore, unlikeable), and you've got a narrow * victory. Sorry, we can't blame Rove for everything. This is the media, and they were TOTALLY in cohoots with the administration.

That's it. Who's ready for a media revolution?

[TayTay]

6. If the Dems return to power

Then the media know that bills will be filed that will de-couple the news from a lot of the giant firms that own it. (GE owns NBC. Under what universe does that make sense?)

This is part of the reason the media doesn't want the Dems in power.

[ProSense]

8. Add to that:

news organizations knowingly publishing fake news, journalists accepting payola from the Bush adminstration, and the media lending undue credibility to the nefarious SBV group's claims, which were not supported by the facts.

[karynnj]

9. Or on a seemingly silly level

No one in the media making on issue of Fox's Cameron(?) putting out the totally made up Kerry story with bogus Kerry quotes saying he was a metrosexual, and women would vote for him because he got manicures. At least one other cable station picked this up as news. It was eventually retracted as a "joke".

This was intententional misinformation - not like in Rather's case material he obviously believed to be true. The wrong man was fired here- one was (at worst) a mistake, the other clearing unproffessional behavior.

Just the way the service records were handled showed the 180 degrees of difference. Kerry's records were there, they showed a very good leader and he had publicly received some of the highest medals there were and until he ran for President his service was never questioned. Bush's records had holes, there was nothing extraordinary in what was there, it was conceded that he lost flying privledges and NO ONE in the 25 man unit he was assigned to ever saw him.

Kerry was expected to prove that the records were correct. For Bush, the task was to find records that proved what was really pretty obvious on the surface - that like he said in 2000 when he was young and irresponsible he was young and irresponsible. (That Aug 2004 polls showed almost equal % believing each is truely sick) Kerry carries life long scars for service he did for his country only to have been slapped in the face for it by the party that supports the military.

[ProSense]

10. The party that claims to support the military is more like it.

I forgot about the Fox incident. It was so "WTF" that I can't even wrap my head around it.

[Blaukraut]

11. That's why I asked

in a previous thread if there is a way that a group of citizens could file a class-action lawsuit against the Times for what essentially amounts to election tampering. I'm so pissed off about that, I would be willing to join the lawsuit. What last shred of believability and decency that paper may have had - it is now gone. The WP is not far behind, I suspect. :mad:

[Inuca]

13. Is this feasible?

Anybody here with a legal background? Why don't you also suggest this on bigger boards? Maybe somebody will pick it up. Sounds quite interesting to me... if nothing else, it would make quite a splash which is good and might have good consequences in and by itself.

[karynnj]

12. You kind of wonder what Bush/Rove had on Sultzberger

The NYT had a reputation that they obviously valued - which if people ever accept the truth of what they did, they no longer deserve.

So, I wonder:
- Was it personal?
- Was it that they genuinely felt that Bush's PNAC plan was the thing that would save the world?
- Were they afraid that John Kerry would do something bad as President?
or
- that John Kerry would after dealing with the mess, insist on carefully examining how we got there. (They didn't know how successful or dilligent Fitxgerald would be.)

[sandrakae]

14. BOYCOTT THAT F*CKING NEWSPAPER.

These bastards need hit where it hurts. The pocketbook

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

15. I am not sure the results would have been desirable to us though...

Please follow the discussion on this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5645033#5645300

(If you follow all my posts there, I lay out the alternate scenario where it might have been terrible for Kerry and the nation.)

[karynnj]

16. I think you might have been right

It's a toss up whether the National Security issues or the privacy interests would dominate - it might depend on what we find out about the targets of these wire taps.

I could see that they would force Kerry to answer and he obviously say he would respect the constitution and the law - which in normal times is 100% the right answer, but with so little control of the media it would be spun as Kerry being too much of a gentleman. (which I think he should get CREDIT for.)