The NY Times Refuses To Speak

And Their Silence Is Deafening...

The total non-story that is behind the NY Times December 16th article claiming that the Bush administration is tapping everybody’s telephones without search warrants continues to break down, even as the Times keeps wasting new ink hyping the issue.

OK, their actual claim is that George Bush is personally allowing Attorney General Ashcroft to approve electronic eavesdropping (wiretaps and intercept of E-mails) of AMERICANS that are suspected of communicating with al Qaeda.

I first wrote about this story on December 21st in my posting called “The NY Times Keeps On Keeping On.”

One of the problems that the Times has is that even their own Public Editor, Byron Calame, is concerned about the veracity of their story and can’t seem to get a satisfactory answer from their management.

Is there really a problem here or isn't there?

THE New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.

The Times continues to rely on innuendo and breathless insinuation of wrongdoing, while at the same time failing to make a single direct allegation of criminal wrongdoing on the part of President Bush or anyone in his administration.

I, personally, have also issued a call for ONE SINGLE MEMBER of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate to exercise their power by demanding an end to this NSA surveillance program.

Twelve days have gone by and, in spite of the BS published in the media, my E-mails have gone unanswered and the program goes on unchallenged by any Democrat (or Republican.)

Where are Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid when you really, really need them?

Where is Ted (hic) Kennedy and John sKerry when the going gets tough?

How can all of you concerned, caring, liberals stand by while your adored politicians take a vacation and ignore our civil liberties being run over in such a roughshod manner?

As is typical of the New York Times and most of the overeducated idiots working in the “lamestream media,” they rely on the ignorance of their readers and/or the partisan bias of their subscribers to carry a story.

You can thank the Bloggers like me to help keep you informed in 2006.

And by the way...you’re quite welcome…I'll put this service on your tab.