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| MOVIE REVIEW "Superman Returns" by Mike Smith | ||
| MOVIE REVIEW "Superman Returns" by Nolan B. Canova | ||
| LISA ON THE LEFT "The Times", They Are A'Changin' by Lisa Zubek | ||
| MIKE'S RANT Coming Soon....Letters....What's 2 Foot Tall and 35 Years Old?...It's Official....Passing On....My Favorite Films, Part 26: "Pulp Fiction" by Mike Smith | ||
| LETTERS | ||
Nolan's Pop Culture ReviewEstablished A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our seventh calendar year!
Number 327 (Vol. 7, No. 26). This edition is for the week of June 26--July 2, 2006.
"The Times" They Are A’Changin’
By Lisa Zubek
New York Republican, Peter King, this week, has asked the Justice Department to investigate The New York Times over a story that has Washington all atwitter.
Last week, The New York Times published a story on a “secret financial-monitoring program” that the Treasury Department and CIA use to track suspected terrorists.
King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, calls the story “an act of treason”, and that furthermore, the paper was “more concerned about a left-wing elitist agenda than it is about the security of the American people.”
House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, has called upon the House of Representatives to debate a resolution condemning the U.S. media and the Times specifically, for exposing details of secret intelligence programs. In fact, a floor vote is scheduled for this Thursday on the matter.
Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning told Fox News that those responsible for the story should be tried for treason.
Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican and the Chairman for the Senate Intelligence Committee has asked for a formal assessment of any damage to the secret programs that the news coverage may have caused. (I’m still thinking Plame here folks)
Other Republicans are calling for the NY Times reporters to be stripped of their press credentials over the story.
Now all this would be fine, except for the fact that the NewYork Times didn’t “leak” any “classified information”.
Yes, the NY Times did run the story as did the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, but there was no “leak” as claimed.
The original “leaker” of this “highly classified information” was President Bush himself.
On September 24, 2001, only 13 days after 9/11, in a televised statement to the nation the President said:
“We have developed the international financial equivalent of law enforcement’s “Most Wanted” list. And it puts the financial world on notice. If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America. This list is just a beginning. We will continue to add more names to the list. We will freeze the assets of others as we find that they aid and abet terrorist organizations around the world. We’ve established a foreign terrorist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international terrorist networks. It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the terrorists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are, and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions.” (Italics mine)
Lest anyone accuse me of quoting some liberal or biased source, the above quote can be found on the news release section of the Whitehouse’s own official website.
So you’ll pardon my puzzlement that this is even an issue. Can it possibly be that the NY Times hasn’t bothered to do the research that it would take to prove that they and the other accused publications “leaked” nothing at all.
How can you leak what was already public knowledge, MADE public by the very administration calling foul? I have yet to see any news story that has connected the dots and called this story what it is… yet another attempt by this administration to distract us from the real issues.
The poll numbers are dropping, public support for the war in Iraq is at an all time low, and the media is sniffing around. God forbid they uncover and then actually have the balls to report on any governmental transgressions. Let’s go after the “liberal media” with some trumped up allegations. The New York Times will lose it’s access to the White House and we won’t have to worry that that “liberal rag” might print something unflattering… something that might make people think.
Squash freedom of the press, negate the credibility of the NY Times, AND come out looking like the victim! What a win-win for the administration!
Hey, why not?! They have gotten away with murder up till now. What makes them think they won’t get away with this?
"Lisa on the Left" is ©2006 by Lisa Zubek
All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2006 by Nolan B. Canova.
Lisa on the Left:
“They have put our troops at risk and anyone who aids the enemy during a war and helps them should be held responsible.” (Valerie Plame, anyone?)