WB: The Times They Are a Changing

July 2, 2006

WB: The Times They Are a Changing

Billmon:

A lot is riding on this election, and even if the Dems are dopes, I’d hate to see anything spoil their chances. Sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor, and while the New York Times certainly has a constitutional right to help Karl Rove fire up his base, and I’ll defend that right to the death (gritting my teeth all the way) I’d much rather they didn’t use it.

The Times They Are a Changing

Posted by b on July 2, 2006 at 05:50 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Today’s Frank Rich column on the issue: Can’t Win the War? Bomb the Press!

if you want to learn the truly dirty secrets of how our government prosecutes this war, the story of how it vilified The Times is more damning than anything in the article that caused the uproar.
The history of that scapegoating begins on the Friday morning, June 23, that The Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal all published accounts of the Swift program first posted on the Web the night before. In his press briefing that morning, Tony Snow fielded many questions about the program’s legality. But revealingly, for all his opportunities, he never attacked the news media.
…
By Monday, the president had entered the fray and Mr. Snow was accusing The Times of putting the “public’s right to know” over “somebody’s right to live.” What had happened over the weekend to prompt this escalation of hysteria? The same stuff that always happens when the White House scapegoats the press (or anyone else): bad and embarrassing news that the White House wants to drown out.
…
In 1972, on the first anniversary of the publication of that classified Pentagon history of the Vietnam War, The Times’s managing editor then, A. M. Rosenthal, reminisced in print about the hyperbolic predictions that had been made by the Nixon White House and its supporters: “Codes would be broken. Military security endangered. Foreign governments would be afraid to deal with us. There would be nothing secret left.” None of that happened. What did happen was that Americans learned “how secrecy had become a way of life” for a government whose clandestine policy decisions had fomented a disaster.
The assault on a free press during our own wartime should be recognized for what it is: another desperate ploy by officials trying to hide their own lethal mistakes in the shadows. It’s the antithesis of everything we celebrate with the blazing lights of Independence Day.

Posted by: b | Jul 2 2006 5:51 utc | 1

I mistakenly posted this on another thread. I apologize.
I think this argument is the same sort of argument that is formulated daily at the DNC, and I think that it is a mistake.
I do believe there is a difference in motivation between Billmon and the DNC, Billmon wants the Demoplicans to win and somehow turn into Democrats after their victory, and the Demoplicans, who are making nearly the same special interest money now that they did when they were in power, see no real need to win any elections. Their patrons will be well served and generous win or lose.
But reading the mind of “the people”, of their reaction to things that have not yet happened, and tailoring your actions based upon the effects of this exercise in mind-reading, especially at two steps remove, seems a formula for disaster. I’m sure FOX is screaming about the NYT, but is anyone really listening anymore?
The polls show that people are fed up and pissed off at everybody in Washington. The way to “play” this is to run against the incumbent politicians and their policies, and against the media and their complicity with the politicians. Not to wait for them to self destruct, not to be meek and thus to inherit the earth. The earth is in rougher and rougher shape every day.
I think a truth teller would sweep almost any election at this point, vilified by the media all the way no doubt. And a real opposition paper would sell like hotcakes right now. If the NYTimes is catching scent of the coming twilight of the neocons and following the money, let them pile on.
The rope-a-dope defense did work once, but poor Ali’s brains were beaten out. Without brains there are no ideas and we need radicle ideas to get us out of the mess we’re in.
As Harry Truman is said to have said about the real SOB and the pretend SOB, a majority of folks will take the real thing anyway.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jul 2 2006 6:03 utc | 2

” I’m sure FOX is screaming about the NYT, but is anyone really listening anymore?”
Very pleasing to hear if that is the case. Our ‘fashion’ based culture makes that state of affairs inevitable. In fact if fox did still have big numbers it would be outliving “The Sun”s Thatcherist heydays and although the Sun was more infuriating and puerile, it was also a lot more entertaining.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 2 2006 7:36 utc | 3

And here I thought the autumn election was already a given. The republicans won a lot of seats on a surprisingly close margain, while the few won by democrats were won by a landslide. Their base calls it a miracle, while the statsticians use phrases like “so unlikely it should not happen even if the universe lived twice as long”. But the statisticians say so much crazy things so the press and the opposition will keep ignoring them.
From that perspective, the best thing that can happen is a mayor newspaper being so alienated by the right wing that they would actually be interested in a voting fraud story. So bash on, little rovians, bash on.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jul 2 2006 13:09 utc | 4

I’m sure FOX is screaming about the NYT, but is anyone really listening anymore?
That was not a rhetorical question, although I hope the fashions have changed. A glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, to recycle a phrase.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jul 2 2006 13:40 utc | 5

If only the Polish Army would refrain from attacking German radio stations for the next couple of months, Goebbels won’t have an excuse to whip up the war fever in Germany.
———–
here

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 2 2006 16:07 utc | 6

Bill Bennet looked so unhappy on MTP, I thought he might hop up onto the table and completly succumb to whatever is transforming him into a giant evil toad.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 2 2006 18:40 utc | 7

hehe. C&L has the meet press vid of bennett.
liberals are destroying america, don’t you know?

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 2 2006 18:57 utc | 8

The problem with the Times, is that its owners and reporters and editors are poorly educated secular “social liberals” (which seems to mean that you don’t think it can happen to you). If they would read their bible, they would learn that it is dangerous to beg for a King.

10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle [b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 2 2006 19:07 utc | 9

#3 – you can’t compare the Sun to Fox in terms of editorial quality. The Sun had photos of naked women in it to give at least some positive impression of humanity.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 2 2006 19:42 utc | 10

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