Noonan On The Times
Dig the jab at Frank Rich (and Peter, note that she doesn’t let the Journal off the hook):
The Times rarely seems driven by an agenda to get the news first, fast and clear; to get the story and let the chips fall. It often seems driven by a search for information that might support its suppositions. Which, again, gets boring. The Times never knows what’s becoming a huge national issue. It’s always surprised by what Americans are thinking.
In a way the modern Times is playing to a base, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and the redoubts of the Upper West Side throughout America: affluent urban neighborhoods and suburbs. The paper plays not to a region but a class.
But one senses the people who run the Times now are not so much living as re-enacting. They’re lost on the big new playing field of American media, and they’re reenacting their great moments–the Pentagon papers, the Watergate days. They’re locked in a pose: We speak truth to (bad Republican) power. Frank Rich is running around with his antiwar screeds as if it’s 1968 and he’s an idealist with a beard, as opposed to what he is, a guy who if he pierced his ears gravy would come out.
This is the imagery that comes to you when you ponder the Times. It’s the imagery that comes unbidden when you ponder the national security stories they’ve been doing. They’re all re-enacting. They’re acting out their own private drama in which they bravely stand up to a secretive and all-powerful American government.
I think it’s personal drama in part because there’s no common sense in it. Common sense tells you that when the actual physical safety of Americans is threatened by extremists who’ve declared a holy war, and when those extremists have, or can get, terrible weapons that can kill thousands or tens of thousands or more, and when the American government is trying to keep them from doing what they’d like to do, which, again, is kill–then you’d think twice, thrice, 10 times before you tell the world exactly how the government is trying, in its own bumbling way, which is how governments do things, to keep innocent people safe and bad guys on the run.
It is kind of crazy that the Times would do two stories that expose, and presumably hinder, the government’s efforts. But then it strikes me as crazy that every paper that has reported the latest story–that would include The Wall Street Journal–would do so. Based on the evidence that has become public so far, the Journal, like the Times, and the Los Angeles Times, seems to me to have made the wrong call. But to me it is the New York Times, of all papers involved, that has most forgotten the mission. The mission is to get the story, break through the forest to get to a clear space called news, and also be a citizen. It’s not to be a certain kind of citizen, and insist everyone else be that kind of citizen, and also now and then break a story.
Forgetting the mission is a problem endemic in newsrooms now. It’s why a lot of them do less journalism than politics. When you’ve forgotten the mission you spend your days talking about, say, diversity in the newsroom. You become distracted by tertiary issues. (Too bad. The news doesn’t care the color or sex of the person who finds it and reports it.) You become not journalistic and now and then political, but political and now and then journalistic.
It’s sad. Though I guess if you’re the Times you take comfort in the fact that even though you’re not as important as you used to be, you’re just as destructive as ever.
This is where I would normally say that’s gotta hurt, but the Times revels in criticism by conservatives. Bill Keller will probably paste this on his wall…
I would agree with strongly with Peggy that the NYT is pretty much becoming a local paper for NY.
The first four paragraphs are her opinions without anything to support them. Whether the Times is playing to the Upper West Side or for Truth, Justice, and the American Way isn’t really something you can debate. She doesn’t like the Times. I got that.
The weakness of her argument is the suggestion that the stories “presumably hinder” the government’s efforts. If she can prove that the reporting did this, then she might have an argument. But she doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to support this.
Key to her argument is the implicit assumption that the printing of any information regarding programs which were either publicly announced (following the flow of money) or blazingly obvious (that we will tap phones of terrorists) has impeded the ability of the government to fight terrorists. Yet neither Peggy Noonan nor anyone else has made this case. The reason for that is obvious: even the most dim-witted terrorist must know that his phone calls, emails, bank transactions, credit card bills, or anything else which is trackable will be tracked.
You can take the opinion that the government is run by wise and benevolent leaders whose actions are uniformly conducted for the public good. Or you could look at American history and see the many instances when Presidents have been dishonest, inept, or abused power and have gone to great lengths to avoid the disclosure of these acts, including using national security as an excuse to hide behind. Watergate is perhaps the best example of this. In many of these instances, it has only been a free and inquisitive press that has brought these things to light.
I think it is important to know that the administration conducts wiretaps without following the law of the land, as outlined in FISA. I think it is important to know that the government has a massive intelligence operation which uses data mining of phone calls. I think it is important to know that bank transactions are monitored. I don’t think that democracy can function without a press which asks hard questions. Any possible damage to the war on terror which resulted from these articles is vastly overblown, if it exists at all. Unless you think that Pravda should be the role model of journalists everywhere, I don’t see how you could do anything but admire the Times, Time Magazine (for revealing Haditha), and every other newspaper which is doing what the press ought to be doing.
Peter,
Maybe this will help:
Kean on Swift
This wasn’t some ad hoc “lets look at our bank records” program. It took a long time to set up, it has had notable successes in catching terrorists, no one has cited abuses by the Bush Administration, and no one has questioned its legality. Why can’t you understand any of these very simple facts that have been laid before you?
And please leave Watergate out of this. Aside from the fact that we had boots on the ground in a foreign country at the time, there were no national security implications to that fiasco. It was a botched coverup that should have been disclosed, but lives weren’t at stake as a result.
I’m all for a free, responsible press. My parents always told me that with privilege comes responsibility. Too bad Bill Keller never learned that lesson.
And the SWIFT operation continues, just as the NSA wiretaps and data mining presumably continue. If, as the administration claims, the program is legal and effective, why shouldn’t it continue?
As for Watergate: you miss my point. Of course there was no national security consideration involved, but this is the justification Nixon used:
“The antecedents of Watergate were steps taken by Nixon from 1969 to 1971 allegedly in the cause of national security. To uncover the sources of leaked news about such matters as the bombing of Cambodia, Nixon authorized, without court approval, the wiretapping of the phones of government officials and newspapermen. But some of the men whose phones were wiretapped had no involvement with security matters, and taps on two men continued after they had joined the staff of Sen. Edmund Muskie (D–Me.), who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.”
http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=0411680-00
And, of course, the administration at the time waged a ferocious fight against the Washington Post. Luckily, a free and inquisitive press brought everything to light.
I also believe that with privilege comes responsibility. Part of the responsibility of the press is to let us all know what our government does in our name.
And now, as if on cue, the Canadians are getting pressure to discontinue the SWIFT program now, along with the Belgians:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1151531412964&call_pageid=970599119419
Now our allies are going to be even more reluctant to participate in intelligence gathering programs. Well done, NYT. I say bravo to you!.
Tell me again why your beloved NYT is so special to you, Peter. Tell us again about the brave and courageous reporters who go willingly into the darkness to rescue the poor benighted souls from eternal damnation. I’m sure we can expect more tortured and irrelevant analogies to events that happened over two decades ago – it’s your fantasy world, and we’re just living in it, after all.
Pravda, Peter? Man, that’s incredibly lame and without any context – try to stay on topic, please.
The NYT total circulation runs about 1.3 million.
Bill O’Reilly has an audience of 2.2 million. (I’m not a big fan, but it is a relevant statistic.)
The implication? the NYT is dead in the water, when a cable news show is getting twice the attention.
Oh and Peter, give it up with ‘no harm done’ defense. You’re a smart guy-you gotta realize that the jig is up.
Wait, we’re supposed to be grateful to Time for reporting on Haditha? Why? The military’s own investigative arm had already begun their inquiry before Time said anything, and their ridiculous jumping to conclusions about the accused was worse than cowardly – it was libelous. The soldiers in question may in fact turn out to be guilty, but to assume that they were guilty until proven innocent was completely reprehensible.
“The first four paragraphs are her opinions without anything to support them.”
Didn’t even really read them, but I don’t doubt that it is true. Noonan was a great speech writer, but I’ve just been losing my confidence in her ability to read public sentiment, largely because she makes sweeping judgments with little or no supporting arguments.
Her work from the last two/three years has been establishing a belief first, and working stuff around it to support it. She did at one time interpret data and came to a conclusion after examining the data. Lately she has been doing it backwards, with little impact.
You know, Peter, I was going to continue the debate, but you seem to be immune to rational discussion today and incapable of addressing the ramifications of the Times actions. I’ve given you confirmation from Gov. Kean that this was a complicated program for terrorists to get around because they didn’t understand it. You’ve offered no evidence whatsoever that there was a legitimate reason for the Times to disclose classified information that benefits terrorists and jeopardizes innocent people. You offer first amendment platitudes of a free press. The press is “free” to publish your home address and telephone number, but it would be wrong to do so.
The programs continue? Yes, but the SWIFT program is in serious jeopardy, as DMAC notes above, and terrorists are bound to exercise more caution in all of their financial dealings, not just straight transfer of funds.
Unlike you, I fear Al Qaeda and their compatriots far more than I fear the US Government.
Peter, you might to ask yourself why you take the opinion that the New York Times is run by wise and benevolent leaders whose actions are uniformly conducted for the public good. No one here is arguing that everything the government labels as secret is legit. Sure, there’s lots of reasons to be suspicious of government. But we’re not arguing about Watergate or the Pentagon Papers or any of the standard hit parade. Heck, we’re not even debating the FISA business. We’re talking about a very specific program, one which you don’t seem to oppose yourself, and each time one of us presents evidence that it has been working, or that it may no longer work now that it’s been revealed, you’ve been sticking your fingers in your ears and reverting to the same talking points you started with. I don’t think any of the papers who reported this were doing so maliciously or traitorously. But I think they did screw up, and they’re getting called on it.
As for the Noonan piece, what struck me most was her first item, where she presents herself as bucking conventional wisdom in thinking that Hillary’s problem in 2008 won’t be that she’s too feminine and soft-hearted, but that she’s a shrewish, calculating ball-buster. This is news? Heck, that’s been the rap on Hillary for years now. Fairly or unfairly, I can’t think of too many people who have said Hillary’s problem is she appears too delicate.
Good point…
I’m not in love the with the republicans, but common sense dictates that ‘it is better to err on the side of caution’.
I think that was the hidden meme’ in 2004, and is going to be replayed.
Yes the republcains and the WH make a lot of mistakes but their position is ‘zealous national defense’, or at least substantially more than the democrats.
Just saw Pelosi touting the Scotus decison with one of the dumbest press releases ever-
Let me summarize-
“We are all americans protected by American law, including Al-Queda.”
Hope you don’t mind Mark, but I’ll post it here, its not that long, but chockful of ignorance:
http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=1659
“Today’s Supreme Court decision reaffirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system. This is a triumph for the rule of law.
“The rights ofdue process are among our most cherished liberties, and today’s decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration’s detainee policiesand a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights. We cannot allow the values on which our country was founded to become a casualty in the war on terrorism.”
Karl rove couldn’t have written it any better for the dems. (perhaps the dem strategy is to induce a heart attack thru laughter for poor Karl.) I feel like I’m laughing at someone who just shot themselves in the face, I doubt Hannity will feel their pain.
Paging Doctor Shrum…
One more post, then I got to get towork on this deck(sorry mark)
Bush could offer up an olive branch to the left as part of a new outreach:
Pardon Kevorkian, make him commandant of Gitmo.
I mean the guy is all about compassion, and who are we to determine who lives and dies?
Check out the latest from the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/washington/29intel.html?ex=1309233600&en=81c66e33debf7eb0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Note in the 8th paragraph that they quote folks like Bob Kerry basically admitting that at the very least, the fact that our news orgs (and gov’t leakers) cannot keep vital secrets from being published will lead to more refusals from our allies of participation in future intelligence activities.
So now our wonderful paper of record is basically admitting that regardless of the consequences, screw everyone. Bush loses, therefore we win. What a bunch of quislings.
Whoops, wrong about the Kerry quote. Different person here – sorry about that.
When’s the last time a DIA offical leaked, to any effectiveness?
How funny that the CIA, onced loathed by the NYT, is being taken down by the paper that has been after them and that the NYT goes with them.
I will get past the ad hominem attacks and the irrelevancies (what difference does it make whether Bill O’Reilly reaches more people than the New York Times?) to answer the more serious points which were raised, as there is a lot of substance under the vitriol. Being called ignorant, moronic, and bilious is untrue and offensive. Being called stubborn is something I can deal with (truth is an absolute defense against libel, and this is true. Ask my wife. Or my mother.)
1) “This was a complicated program for terrorists to get around because they didn’t understand it:” if you’re a terrorist and you put money in a bank, send a wire transfer, sign an LC, or whatever, the US government is interested in finding out (and potentially seizing the assets). What is so hard to understand about that? The way SWIFT works may be complicated, but it’s like saying that people will drive fast through speed traps because they don’t know how a laser gun operates. (Sorry for all of the traffic metaphors).
2) “You’ve offered no evidence whatsoever that there was a legitimate reason for the Times to disclose classified information that benefits terrorists and jeopardizes innocent people.” Actually, I have, but it was in a different thread. The reasons include the fact that this program is unprecedented in size and scope; that the legal underpinning is apparently a 1970’s banking law which was a temporary measure; and that what the government does, especially when it is unprecedented, is certainly newsworthy.
Moreover, the program may be illegal, as the Times article quotes a “leading expert on banking privacy” who says that the program “appears to do an end run around bank-privacy laws that generally require the government to show that the records of a particular person or group are relevant to an investigation.” … The Times also wrote that “Treasury and Justice Department lawyers” debated legal issues surrounding the program, and that SWIFT executives were “[w]orried about potential legal liability,” even threatening, at one point, to shut down the program.
Not newsworthy? No legitimate reason to print the story?
3) “Each time one of us presents evidence that it has been working, or that it may no longer work now that it’s been revealed:” if it has worked in the past but is no longer working – presumably because the administration had been very vocal in announcing how they will track the flow of funds – then what the Times printed is moot. Whether “it may no longer work now that it’s been revealed” of course remains to be seen, but this brings us back to where we started. I read the Times article and I subtracted from it what was explicit and implicit in the White House announcement from 2001, and the only things which are new are technical details. From the reaction to the Times piece, you would think that it is 1945 and the Times told the world about the Manhattan Project. Why the method of collecting data is so crucial is a mystery to me: to my thinking it’s akin to how a laser gun operates. I have a lot of respect for Tom Kean, and I take what he says seriously. If, in fact, other banks refuse to cooperate, then I would view this differently (although I don’t see why this should happen if the program is legal and effective – not to mention the leverage the US has in blocking access to our financial system). As noted by one of the posters, the banking monitoring is much more of a judgment call than the FISA situation. I am pretty much of an absolutist on First Amendment issues, and I am inherently skeptical of governments (especially this one), and I will freely admit that these biases color my perception. However, based on what we know as of today, it seems very much to me to be a transparent attempt to shift the discussion from soldiers getting beheaded in Iraq and the inability to pass an immigration bill to a topic much more congenial to Republican interests: painting the Times as a bogeyman. That is the only reason I can see why such a big deal is made of such an inconsequential disclosure.
“…transparent attempt to shift the discussion from soldiers getting beheaded in Iraq.”
Hello Pot, I’m the Kettle! Let’s count up the various irrelevant subjects you’ve raised here – The Pentagon Papers, Haditha, Watergate – heck, why not throw in global warming while you’re at it, just go all in at this point? Your steady reliance on events that have no bearing on this issue is not helping your argument here.
Not at all. There is a coordinated attack by Republicans on the New York Times which I believe is vastly out of proportion to the issue at hand. I am suggesting a very logical motive for this attack. How is that irrelevant?
Watergate is relevant because it is another instance of a President using national security as a device to prevent disclosure of acts of his which he did not want to become public. I’m not suggesting that Nixon equals Bush. Rather, I am making the point that the Presidential use of national security is not always justified.
Pentagon Papers is relevant because it directly concerns the right of the press to publish classified information.
Haditha is relevant as another example of how a free press serves the function of revealing things which the government would not reveal.
Coordinated attack, eh? No chance that we’re genuinely upset?…
“There is a coordinated attack by Republicans on the New York Times which I believe is vastly out…”
Oh boy – tell it to the KosKids, Peter. They just love this type of unhinged ranting – everything’s a conspiracy, the evil hand of the dungeon – master Rove is controlling all of our destinies, blah, blah, blah. You must realize that this type of infantilization of your own arguments are the primary reasons why the Dems keep losing campaigns, even when they’re up against substandard candidates.
If everything’s a conspiracy, therefore you have no chance, therefore the country’s doomed, therefore all manner of logic and reason are moot, etc. The cockeyed logic of this mode of thinking will always keep you on the outside raging against the elements, rather than analyzing why the majority of the country does not agree with your worldview. Cognitive dissonance is a hard thing to experience: just ask the Republicans during the 70’s – they eventually got over it, and it’s well past time that the Dems grow up and let go of their past glories and get on with the serious matter of dealing with people who wish to annihilate us all with one act. The country will never elect a party that seeks to protect the rights of those who would sell us out in order to please their narrow constituency that resides in the salons of 5th Avenue (and Berkeley).
My anger at the times is genuine, but it does seem that the movement is against the times is losing sight of the leakers.
“There is a coordinated attack by Republicans on the New York Times which I believe is vastly out of proportion to the issue at hand.”
Proportion…The emphasis of the case against the NYT does seem to be in a larger proportion than neccessary, relative to the actual leakers.
Coordinated? No. Mob mentality? yes. Leadership from the WH? none.
Oh, please. When all of the Republicans are singing from the same songbook, you don’t think there is some coordination involved?
A few weeks ago, during the faux debate on Iraq, the Pentagon gave talking points to the Republicans in Congress. As far as I know, it is the first time the Pentagon was used to advance the agenda of the governing party in Congress. The talking points came to light only because they were accidentally sent to Nancy Pelosi.
If the White House will stoop low enough to engage the Pentagon — which theoretically is a non-partisan government organization — to coordinate the “debate” in Congress, why wouldn’t they coordinate the attack on the New York Times?
Gee, I don’t know – maybe because they’ve got better things to do with their time, perhaps? The President makes a one – minute reference to it, so that means that everyone else naturally goes on point immediately. Not quite “Wag the Dog” territory here.
The story comes out on a Friday (I think), nothing happens until Tuesday (I think), then both Bush and Cheney make statements on the same day, and later that day all Hell breaks loose. Must be coincidence.
Your theory presupposes that the people in question did not know their position on this until they met/discussed and came up with a plan.
It was a no-brainer. The NYT revealed a secret program, once effective becuase it was a secret program.
Your first sentence is correct. The second sentence is incorrect, because there was nothing secret about a plan which has been broadcasted by the administration for three years.
The article by Richard Clarke and Roger Cressey in today’s Times says it better than I can:
“(The Bush administration) wants the public to believe that it had not already occurred to every terrorist on the planet that his telephone was probably monitored and his international bank transfers subject to scrutiny. How gullible does the administration take the American citizenry for?”
Peter, as part of this secret conspiracy to deflect attention, did the Rove braintrust force the Times et al to publish the stories in the first place? After all, it’s hard to send out the marching orders without the Reichstag fire to start it off.
You’ll also notice that people were in fact blogging about this story, the day it was published, such as High Hewitt and Instapundit, both of whome include links to other bloggers talking about it. I guess they all must have misread the orders dictating no discussion of this until Tuesday.
I must say, I’m feeling a little left out. I’m just honestly aggravated. No one instructed me on what emotion to have.
Ah, Richard Clarke. Publishing an essay in the Times itself. Now there’s an unbiased source.
The blogosphere is one thing and the Republican establishment is another. When the heavyweights in the Republican party all say the same thing at the same time, I think it’s reasonable to draw the inference that there might be some coordination present.
If you don’t like Clarke and Cressey – both of whom served as top anti-terrorism officials – then feel free to dismiss both of them. I would think that their backgrounds would give them some credibility. Their take on the issue is:
“There is, of course, another possible explanation for all the outraged bloviating. It is an election year. Karl Rove has already said that if it were up to the Democrats, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would still be alive. The attacks on the press are part of a political effort by administration officials to divide America, and to scare their supporters to the polls again this year.”
We’ve seen a number of efforts to fire up the base over the past few weeks. First the Congress wasted a few days to debate a gay marriage bill which everyone knew was doomed to failure. Then there was a few days to talk about a flag burning amendment, which is a solution in search of a problem if there ever was one. Now we have the brouhaha about the Times. During this period, the media focus shifted from gas prices, the immigration bill deadlock, and the war in Iraq to three issues which are red meat for the base. Now you may feel that an administration which is willing to expose a CIA operative to the press for partisan gain would be genuinely upset when the Times reveals minor details about a program which has been public knowledge for years. Sorry, I just don’t buy it.
You’re not going to get any argument from me on the gay marriage / flag amendment thing, but my opinion, which you obviously don’t agree with, is that the Times thing is an animal of a different color. Fired up the base? Hell, yeah, it did – but little direction was needed…
A few days ago, I looked at your homepage and counted the number of threads about the Times thing – I think it was seven out of sixteen items – this is probably as good a proxy as any for determining how fired up the base is –
Honestly, I think the reaction WAS delayed a little – for me, it took a while to sink in how angry it made me (I’m not arguing with you, just explaining my reactions) – not that the revelation was made so much as that it was made on what appeared to be a completely above-board, successful program…
I suspect that the whole thing will die down very quickly now, however; these things tend to…
I’m skeptical – I think the GOP will drag this out as long as they possibly can.
I’m still upset at the Journal – they have been completely silent on the issue – I think they’re a bunch of, uh, wussies (well, rhymes with wussies).