Babbin: Total Dysfunction at the New York Times Contributed by Bill Faith
The New York Times's publication of two classified anti-terrorist programs and the Times's nose-in-the-air defense of its actions have inflamed conservative anti-media passions to a temperature not reached since Watergate. Michael Barone - who was fair and balanced before Fox News was born - put it in perspective. Barone compared NYT executive editor Bill Keller's explanation of the Times's decisions to, on one hand, not republishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed with those to, on the other hand, publish both the NSA terrorist surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking terrorist money through the Belgian "SWIFT" consortium. Barone wrote, "Disclosing classified programs that help protect us against terrorism is just dandy. But publishing cartoons that would be 'perceived as a particularly deliberate insult' by Muslims is beyond the pale. Coddling tender sensitivities is more important [to the New York Times] than protecting national security."
Calls for prosecution of the Times and vague hints about Justice Department investigations have done nothing to change the Times's agenda. ...
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Contributed by Bill Faith on July 13, 2006 at 07:41 AM in , |