Ahh, The Vision Begins to Return
Man, that eye dilation is very disconcerting…I’m back to about 60%, though, so a quick post…
First up: the flipside to the Newsweek piece I highlighted earlier today is this hard-hitting piece from Debra Burlingame in the WSJ:
Meanwhile, the media, mouthing phrases like “Article II authority,” “separation of powers” and “right to privacy,” are presenting the issues as if politics have nothing to do with what is driving the subject matter and its coverage. They want us to forget four years of relentless “connect-the-dots” reporting about the missed chances that “could have prevented 9/11.” They have discounted the relevance of references to the two 9/11 hijackers who lived in San Diego. But not too long ago, the media itself reported that phone records revealed that five or six of the hijackers made extensive calls overseas.
NBC News aired an “exclusive” story in 2004 that dramatically recounted how al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, the San Diego terrorists who would later hijack American Airlines flight 77 and fly it into the Pentagon, received more than a dozen calls from an al Qaeda “switchboard” inside Yemen where al-Mihdhar’s brother-in-law lived. The house received calls from Osama Bin Laden and relayed them to operatives around the world. Senior correspondent Lisa Myers told the shocking story of how, “The NSA had the actual phone number in the United States that the switchboard was calling, but didn’t deploy that equipment, fearing it would be accused of domestic spying.” Back then, the NBC script didn’t describe it as “spying on Americans.” Instead, it was called one of the “missed opportunities that could have saved 3,000 lives.”
Ryan James, whom I’m debating cutting off contact with completely out of sheer jealousy that he will be seeing U2 in less than 2 weeks, has been blogging like crazy…just keep scrolling…but start with his count on the cloture vote…
By the way, how cheesy is it that Barack Obama and Harry Reid, who had the courage to at least argue against the futility of the filibuster, voted no on cloture?…
Watched ABC’s World News Tonight while waiting for my vision to return. Some quick thoughts:
1. Bob Woodruff’s injuries sound very serious, indeed…once again, best wishes and heartfelt prayers for a full recovery.
2. The cloture vote didn’t even make the broadcast!
3. War is a horrible, horrible thing. What brave men and women we have defending us. We owe a debt we can never repay to them, and also to the incredibly talented and dedicated medical professionals who care for our wounded…
So ABC didn’t even mention to cloture vote even though it was done by the end of their broadcast. And some wonder why I have become very cynical towards the media. Can we say agenda. P-I-T-I-F-U-L.
The Wall Street Journal piece is fatuous.
1) The Journal typically combs over the bald spots in its arguments with ad hominem diversions. For example, when you start a sentence with “the media, mouthing phrases like ‘Article II authority,’ “ you have dismissed the opposing arguments without bothering to say why they are purportedly wrong. The implication is that the media don’t know what they are talking about because they are only mouthing phrases. The Journal never says why Article II is not relevant – there is no substance to their argument besides insult.
2) The statement that the media “are presenting the issues as if politics have nothing to do with what is driving the subject matter” is similarly incorrect, for several reasons:
a. Of course politics plays a role in the subject matter. Politics plays a role in health care, Social Security, defense appropriations, and everything else that the government does. Moreover, the politics of the situation have been discussed exhaustively in the media. So what exactly is their point?
b. The clear implication is that politics is the primary driving force of media coverage. Well, no. The President is in apparent violation of the law, the wiretap program is larger than anybody knew, and there are lawsuits and committee hearings galore. These are real, substantive news stories which should be written about, regardless of whether or not there are political elements to the story. There were political elements in Ken Starr’s investigation – does the Journal suggest that this story shouldn’t have been covered either? Or that it is somehow less newsworthy because politics were involved?
c. The other implication is that this is a partisan issue with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. Given the number of Republicans who have expressed serious concerns about the NSA program, the implication is clearly false.
3) The rest of the excerpt also makes no sense. It mentions that some of the 9/11 hijackers made or received international calls, but doesn’t say what stopped the NSA from eavesdropping on the calls. (Certainly not FISA – they could have listened all they wanted, as any FISA judge would certainly have issued a warrant). It states that the NSA didn’t wiretap the San Diego hijackers because the NSA feared “it would be accused of domestic spying.” Again, any judge would have issued a warrant. (If the issue is limitations on what the NSA can do domestically: these aren’t issues for the FBI.)
peter, I must question your assumption that the professionals in the NSA and FBI are so stupid (maybe you wouldn’t put it that way, but that’s the implication) that they wouldn’t just go get one of these ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ FISA warrants that were apparently being handed out like candy. If the NSA didn’t wiretap the San Diego hijackers out of fear of being accused of domestic spying, it was because of excessive restraints on their operations pre-9/11 – and that’s the whole point of the WSJ editorial…
I don’t think they are stupid — but I find it hard to believe that they identified people in the US as Al Qaeda suspects and left them alone for the sole reason that “they were (afraid) of being accused of domestic spying.”
The FISA Court has apparently granted over 99% of the warrants which were requested — there is certainly probable cause — what’s to stop them?
Well, I don’t know that I know the answer, but I find the argument (not necessarily yours, but one that’s been pretty prevalent lately) that the FISA warrants were easily obtainable to be pretty unbelievable – why did we go and get thousands of them, and then just lazily skip a few very, very important ones? There has to be more to it than that…