THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!
Or so says Ombudsman Bryan Calame at the New York Times. Michelle Malkin calls it "Un. Freaking. Believable!" It really is, isn't it? The arrogance is mindboggling. What the heck are you talking about Sara?
Remember the Swift Program used to monitor and follow the money of terrorists? Remember when the New York Times splashed the details of that program across its front page? Remember how the White House and the intelligence gurus begged the New York Times not to reveal the program? Remember how they even brought in the big gun democrats from the 9/11 Commission to plead with the NYT not to run the story? And who could forget Secretary Snow's angry letter to the Times? Remember? I thought you might.
So here is ombudsman Bryan Calame in a blurb buried in the Times today regarding the banking data surveillance program:
Since the job of public editor requires me to probe and question the published work and wisdom of Times journalists, there’s a special responsibility for me to acknowledge my own flawed assessments.
My July 2 column strongly supported The Times’s decision to publish its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program. After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis. While it’s a close call now, as it was then, I don’t think the article should have been published.
Those two factors are really what bring me to this corrective commentary: the apparent legality of the program in the United States, and the absence of any evidence that anyone’s private data had actually been misused. I had mentioned both as being part of “the most substantial argument against running the story,” but that reference was relegated to the bottom of my column.
The source of the data, as my column noted, was the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift. That Belgium-based consortium said it had honored administrative subpoenas from the American government because it has a subsidiary in this country.
I haven’t found any evidence in the intervening months that the surveillance program was illegal under United States laws. Although data-protection authorities in Europe have complained that the formerly secret program violated their rules on privacy, there have been no Times reports of legal action being taken.
...The lack of appropriate oversight — to catch any abuses in the absence of media attention — was a key reason I originally supported publication. I think, however, that I gave it too much weight.
And here is the clincher, the admission that this was all over an editor(s) at the New York Times being pissed off and getting even:
What kept me from seeing these matters more clearly earlier in what admittedly was a close call? I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith in a free press — two traits that I warned readers about in my first column.
Frankly, I do not know what to say about this, I find it so shocking. It sounds so high school. So petty. So disgusting. So, so, so infuriating! Screw the American public, screw our brave men and women at war with the terrorists, screw our allies and the citizens of other countries put at risk, screw everyone as long as the NYT feeds its BDS. I pray to God they find the way to prosecute these guys and throw their vicious, reckless, arrogant butts in prison for the rest of their miserable lives and let them find out what a good screwing is all about.
Related:
Times Public Editor - SWIFT Disclosure Was Wrong Tom Maguire sums up in three words: "Toothpaste meet tube." And from a comment:
If we're going to hope that this apologia is a 'sign', let's hope that it's a preemptive move on Commissar Calame's part to distance himself from those he believes will soon be undergoing trial for the NSC disclosures.
The thought of Keller, Sulzberger, Risen and Lichtblau wandering aimlessly around the exercise yard at Leavenworth always cheers me up.
I keep wondering of the staff dismissal on the House committee might be a precursor to something similiar happening wrt the Senate intelligence committee. Maybe accompanied by a reading of the Rockefeller memo on national TV...
Spot on Rick. This sums up my feeling perfectly.
NYT's Calame: Oops. Our Bad: (Ed Morrissey)
Reading his effort here, Calame makes it clear that the publication of this story amounted to either incompetence or malice; no other explanation works. The Times knew that no laws had been broken, nor did they ever find any evidence that program officials abused the information gathered. The Times used mutually exclusive arguments to answer their critics after its publication; on one hand, they trumpeted the program as a secret that could lead to abuse (which they never found), and on the other they argued that everyone knew about it, including the terrorists. It took Calame almost four months to discover this rather transparent contradiction.
Byron Calame Should Resign, so says Patterico:
Simply put, Byron Calame overlooked obvious facts, and defended his paper in a knee-jerk fashion, simply because his paper had been viciously attacked by the government.
A public editor who cannot objectively evaluate his paper’s behavior in the face of criticism — from any source — should not be the public editor.
I aggree 100%.
NYT Buffoon Chokes Out "Apology" - "Mama, He Called Me A Bad Name...." (Bill Quick)
Oh, horse manure. You let your ingrained hatred of everything not nakedly leftist - including the Bush administration - govern your thoughts and actions, as do almost all employees of the New York Times.
...
You people are pathetic. Worse, you are Fifth Columnists, and apparently too stupid to even understand what you are.
Traitorous is what they are. This was no insignificant revelation. It hurt us badly with our allies and intelligence agencies worldwide. It hampers our ability to track the terrorists. It is one of many leaks that have damaged the United States and the Bush Administration's ability to fight the terrorists. It is unforgiveable.
Glenn Reynolds: "So the New York Times damaged national security by tipping terrorists off to the existence and nature of a legal program that was not being abused. Remember that the next time they declare their own fitness to be trusted with national security decisions."
Newsbusters wonders:
Amazing. Of course, one has to wonder how much press – if any – Calame’s new position will get, especially sixteen days before an election. Certainly, it seems safe to assume that the drive-by media aren't going to want to give a lot of publicity to the fact that the New York Times own ombudsman now thinks it was wrong for that paper to reveal what ended up being a legal surveillance program.
Oh, I think this will get play. The blogosphere, as you can see already, is in gear. The old days of being able to bury such a stunning mea culpa at the bottom of an article and depend on the mainstream to ignore it are over. People like me, who never read the NYT, are now instantly aware of their perfidity. I expect to see Rush and Fox all over this story come morning, as well they should be. I expect to see the blogosphere explode later today when the football games and the NASCAR race are over. Stay tuned for updates here.
UPDATE:
Hmmmm. Dan Riehl doesn't agree with Patterico and thinks this mea culpa is all about helping Hillary in '08. His reasoning seems to be that it is definitely not to Hillary's benefit to have the looney left, in the persons of Nancy Pelosi and a Dem. led House, in charge for the next two years. Maybe. I think that sitting Grand Jury investigating press leaks, i.e., NSA Surveillance program, may be exerting more influence, but it is an interesting take on the mea culpa of Calame.
Unlike Patterico, I wouldn't want Calame to resign. Why throw out an Editor when you have him on record publicly acknowledging the mistake and that the NY Times doesn't like George Bush? I'd prefer having him right where he is.
NSA - Ny Times preparing for the worse? I've been waiting to see what Mac has to say and he doesn't disappoint. GMTA and all that:
Well there is a reason for this sudden reversal of position. It’s actually quite simple.
While the grand jury investigation is still on-going, and information scarce, the fact is that there should be cause for nervousness at the Times.
Ace gets down to the nitty gritty with this zinger question: "Where do we go to get our reputation national security back?"
Sister Toldjah is another blogger who doesn't agree with Patterico about a Calame resignation:
Most noteably, they need to revisit their policies that suggest it’s ok to reveal sensitive information in a time of war to the public. The NYT simply does not know how to balance the public’s “right to know” with the government’s obligation to protect the American people.
It is a little odd to see the New York Times as the underdog, even with respect to the Administration (especially the mid-2006 Bush Administration, which was hardly at the peak of its power).
Ya' think?
But independently of that, could readers please point me to the Administration statements that the editor seems to be referring to as "vicious criticism[s]"? I would genuinely like to be informed about this, since it might provide a better referent for what "vicious" means in political discourse (for instance, for deciding whether particular New York Times columns critical of the Administration are themselves "vicious criticism[s]").
Powerline also questions the "vicious" characterization and comes up with this:
I was struck by Calame's reference to the administration's "vicious criticism" of the Times. Not having any recollection of any such "vicious criticism," I searched the paper's archives to find out what Calame had in mind. There was only one article that could have included "vicious crititicism" between the date when the Times published the leak and the date when Calame defended the publication. Here it is.
The article is titled, " Bush Condemns Report on Sifting Of Bank Records." Here are all of the quotes by administration sources that Calame could have characterized as "vicious":
"Congress was briefed," Mr. Bush said. "And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America."
"Some in the press, in particular The New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs," the vice president said, adding that the program provides "valuable intelligence" and has been "successful in helping break up terrorist plots."
"Traditionally in this country in a time of war, members of the press have acknowledged that the commander in chief, in the exercise of his powers, sometimes has to do things secretly in order to protect the public," Mr. [Tony] Snow said. ''This is a highly unusual departure."
"If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money,'' the president said. ''And that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."
And because The Squiggler considers herself to be a public service (I must be, I don't get paid, although I do blog for change), the following is provided for the benefit of the definitionally challenged, i.e. the Nutroots, Kos Kiddies, Bryan Calame, Pinch Sulhzberger, Bill Keller, et al:
vi-cious, adj. 1. addicted to or characterized by vice. 2. given to evil. 3. spiteful or malicious. 4. savage or ferocious. 5. unpleasantly severe.
None of these describe what I would have to say or do to them if I was Queen for the Day.
The Anchoress says it all in the title of her post “I hated Bush so much I couldn’t do my job…” but what the heck, let's expand just a bit, because we like the way she thinks:
Vicious criticism? Oh, you mean like when President Bush said “these sorts of leaks destroy programs that are saving lives?” Oh, my…that’s vicious. It’s not like Bush called the Times a name…it’s not like Bush took a tone with the Times that came anywhere near the tone the Times editors routinely take over him or his administration. “Waaaaahhhh…I didn’t like how Bush was, so I didn’t do my job! Wahhhh.”
Clearly if you can’t do your job because you can’t put your wounded pride aside, then you shouldn’t be in that job. An ombudsman is supposed to look at a story and judge the rightness of it, without passion or prejudice. Calame has demonstrated he cannot do this, at least not in a timely manner…or above the fold. I give him credit for admitting it, but now that he has seen that he cannot detach his feelings from his work, he should resign.
Lorrie Byrd gives the bottom line and I wish she wasn't quite so accurate, but alas, this is the way it is:
This is so typical of the way the left operates -- page one stories about all the evils of the Bush administration, then when facts prove otherwise, if we are lucky, we get a buried admission months later, after the accusations and allegations have been accepted as conventional wisdom. It is predictable, but effective.
And at the end of the day, LGF puts the nail in the coffin: "He does not deal with the bigger issue—that revealing secret government programs that protect us from terrorists just might negatively affect the security of America." Their "emtpty suit" title made me laugh.
Good initial 'wrap up' Sara - I imagine that there will be more updates on this one.
Always feel free to use my comments. Except for the dumb ones of course. I like to restrict usage of those...
Posted by: Rick Ballard | 22 October 2006 at 12:11 PM
The Market says . . . newspapers like the Times and the Boston Globe are poor investments.
Wonder why . . .
Posted by: everyman | 22 October 2006 at 06:13 PM
And you still call NYT liberal...
Posted by: Janus Daniels | 22 October 2006 at 07:49 PM
WOW! Two instalanches in less than a week! You go gurl! Excellent commentary, sweety.
Posted by: Larry | 23 October 2006 at 08:02 AM