Posted on 06/30/2006 10:53:12 AM PDT by mathprof
After remaining mum for the past week, even as controversy swirled around newspapers' revealing the banking records surveillance program, the Wall Street Journal editoral page weighed in today. Although the Journal published its own story just hours after The New York Times -- which has taken the most heat -- its editorial defended its own action while blasting the Times.
It even included a personal slam at Times' publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and said the Times did not want to win, but rather obstruct, the war on terror.
Sulzberger responded this afternoon: "I know many of the reporters and editors at The Wall Street Journal and have greater faith in their journalistic excellence than does the Editorial Page of their own paper. I, for one, do not believe they were unaware of the importance of what they were publishing nor oblivious to the impact such a story would have."
Among other things, the editorial criticized the Times for using the Journal as "its ideological wingman" to deflect criticism from the right. And it pointed out that the news and editorial departments are quite separate at the paper and if given the option the editorial side would not have printed the Times' story.
Finally, it explained how it got its own story, then slammed the Times for a wide range of sins, claiming that the "current political clamor" is "warning to the press about the path the Times is walking."
The Times has defended its reporting, saying publication has served America's public interest. Its executive editor, Bill Keller, said in a statement on Thursday that the paper took seriously the risks of reporting on intelligence.
"We have on many occasions withheld information when lives were at stake," Keller said. "However, the administration simply did not make a convincing case that describing our efforts to monitor international banking presented such a danger. Indeed, the administration itself has talked publicly and repeatedly about its successes in the area of financial surveillance."
Journal editors have not responded to repeated requests from E&P for comment this week.
Here are a few excerpts from Friday's Journal editorial. *
We recount all this because more than a few commentators have tried to link the Journal and Times at the hip. On the left, the motive is to help shield the Times from political criticism. On the right, the goal is to tar everyone in the "mainstream media." But anyone who understands how publishing decisions are made knows that different newspapers make up their minds differently.
Some argue that the Journal should have still declined to run the antiterror story. However, at no point did Treasury officials tell us not to publish the information. And while Journal editors knew the Times was about to publish the story, Treasury officials did not tell our editors they had urged the Times not to publish. What Journal editors did know is that they had senior government officials providing news they didn't mind seeing in print. If this was a "leak," it was entirely authorized....
The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush Administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it.
So, for example, it promulgates a double standard on "leaks," deploring them in the case of Valerie Plame and demanding a special counsel when the leaker was presumably someone in the White House and the journalist a conservative columnist. But then it hails as heroic and public-spirited the leak to the Times itself that revealed the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretaps.
Mr. Keller's open letter explaining his decision to expose the Treasury program all but admits that he did so because he doesn't agree with, or believe, the Bush Administration. "Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress," he writes, and "some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight." Since the Treasury story broke, as it happens, no one but Congressman Ed Markey and a few cranks have even objected to the program, much less claimed illegality.
Perhaps Mr. Keller has been listening to his boss, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who in a recent commencement address apologized to the graduates because his generation "had seen the horrors and futility of war and smelled the stench of corruption in government.
"Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, sorry. It wasn't supposed to be this way," the publisher continued. "You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights," and so on.
Forgive us if we conclude that a newspaper led by someone who speaks this way to college seniors has as a major goal not winning the war on terror but obstructing it.
I subscribe to WSJ. I do so for business news. But they are globalist and NWO all the way. The first rate reporting that they do do is not by journalists who want to be stars or celebrities or in the case NYT reporters and editors who do not want to report the story as much as become the story. Obviously, the WSJ made a mistake going with story in the first place, but their biggest mistake was waiting a week gauging the political and commercial effects of their reporting before forcefully explaining themselves. It kinda of looked like a Kerry moment where they were for it before they were against it but now they are really against it. Character and integrity are not based on one's postion as so much the timing of the position.
LOL
>Frankly, no. Why not simply say what you mean?<
Because that could be very dangerous for me, but I ended up saying it anyway, didn't I? :o(
Thank you for supplying that info. :o)
As but one (1) example is the following:
18 U.S.C. §798. Disclosure of Classified Information.
(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—
(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or
(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes—Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (b) As used in this subsection (a) of this section—
The term “classified information” means information which, at the time of a violation of this section, is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution; .........
The term “communication intelligence” means all procedures and methods used in the interception of communications and the obtaining of information from such communications by other than the intended recipients;
The term “unauthorized person” means any person who, or agency which, is not authorized to receive information of the categories set forth in subsection (a) of this section, by the President, or by the head of a department or agency of the United States Government which is expressly designated by the President to engage in communication intelligence activities for the United States.
"On the right, the goal is to tar everyone in the "mainstream media."
No need in that.
They do an excellent job of proving their nonexistant patriotism, and
their goal of obstructing our war effort, every day...all by themselves.
Thank you for a GOOD post!
This is arrant nonsense. Please read their editorial. It explains exactly what prompted them to write the article. When a Treaury official comes to them, gives them the lead and assures them that it is unclassified and not a leak, they went ahead with the story.
What the heck is NWO? If you mean they urge responding to the realities of a Global Economy then I guess I must be too. If you mean they write news stories sympathetic to illegal immigrants and argue non-prosecution of those that hire them - then I need to see the evidence beyond that of pointing out the consequence of stopping the flow of cheap migrant workers.
To compare the WSJ to the NYT is simply ridiculous.
Try to follow - that is what I'm saying. The fact that our government felt the need to declassify information because of the Time's decision to run the story is only the first of the problem.
The fact is that the Post, San Fran Chronicle and WSJ also went with the story - albeit after the Times went against the gov asking them not to.
Read the editiorial!!
BTTT
These are the companies that support the traitorous NEW YORK TIMES.
BOYCOTT THEM ALL and drive them into Bankrupcy.
[from the June 27, 2006 online edition of the New York Times]
50 Pine Street
About
American Express
Bankrate.com
Benzel-Busch Motor Car Corp.-
Brown Harris Stevens
C/Net
Canon
Chase
Citibank
Citi Habitats New York
Continental Airlines
Credit Protect X3
Crestor
Dell
E-Trade Financial
Eberhart Rentals
Edmunds.com
Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center
Fidelity
Google
Halstead Property
Hewlett Packard
Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Centers
K. Hovnanian's Builders
Lenovo
Manhattan Mortgage
Mercedes Benz Tri-State Dealers
Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants
NY City Department of Education
Pair Networks
Quebec
Related Rentals
Rockrose Development Corp.
Samsung
Scottrade
State Farm
T Mobile
I wondered why conservatives weren't going after the WSJ. Now I know - the cat was already out of the bag. BTW, Barack Obama said the NYT was just doing its job (on Hannity & Colmes, IIRC)... Well done editorial.
Hey, Sulzberger...put some ice on it, you treasonous POS.
I have almost the same take regarding the WSJ. The NYT, on the other hand, is a joke, deserving to be mocked and ridiculed. Repeatedly. And treated with indifference.
In this current matter of national security, I am more concerned that some bureaucrat is leaking info to the press. That needs to be pursued doggedly.
I read their editorial. They explained themselves very well. I argued with the timing, their explanation and criticism of the NYT, I welcome. I absolutely disagree with their position on illegal immigration. But beyond that I am probably not so much pro business particuarly multi-nationals but I am very very much pro stockholder which is to say too many companies are run for the benefit of those who run the company not the stockholders. I would like markets to be self-regulating unlike the Euroweenies. If that is to occur then the press must take the responsibilty to put light and heat on companies which are not operating in the best interest of stockholders. When it comes to questionable practices , the WSJ is usually late with the light and the heat.
Thank you, thank you...
This is gamesmanship designed to lessen the incentive for the NYT to print the story. The heat the NYT is receiving has the same effect.
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