Estate=4 Gets ScoldedFollow

Story

Oh no, not a toothless resolution saying "Bad press!" -- anything but that! When this story first broke, the "punishments" being tossed around ranged from taking away the NYT's White House press credentials to the tried-and-true knee jerk "Try them for treason!". What is this resolution supposed to accomplish beyond showing that congressional Republicans don't like the media reporting on Bush's programs and what, if anything, does it say that this is the best response they can come up with?

Doesn't the government know whats best for us to know? Why even have independent media, or even independent records for that matter? We could just depend on the government to let us know whats important, so we dont have to waste all of that time and energy on research, worry, and independent thought. After all, depending on the circumstance sometimes 2+2 equals 5, and it's just easier to get that information right from our trusted government than trying to puzzle it out, right?

Just to head off the expected critiques at the pass, I fully support the Powers That Be investigating who leaked the classified information to the press, assuming it was classified.

Edited, Jun 30th 2006 at 10:28am EDT by Jophiel

So really, your support is conditionally full?

/poke
You're so....sincere.

Meh. Largely so, in my opinion.

If the Powers That Be disagree, then arrest the appropriate parties at the Times et al and put them on trial. A Congressional "Aw, don't do that!" is a pretty limp dicked solution.

There's certainly things I wouldn't want the press to disclose and I'll admit that the line is rather nebulous. Although I'm not convinced, one could make a credible argument against the press in this particular instance. But, no, I'm not comfortable with the government blanketing things with a "Classified" stamp and therefore removing them from public critique and discussion by simple virtue of a label.

Xythe,

Glad to see you're as stupid as ever. Some things never change.



You're rights end where anothers begin. For these agencies to publish information that places the troops in danger evidences exactly who they are and what they stand for. These people that are in gitmo are not american citizens. They do not have the same rights we enjoy; therefore we are not taking away anything. You can't deny someone something they never had to begin with.

Fortunately for the US you liberal pinko commies are relegated to hiding on forums like these.

achileez

It's wonderfull to not disappoint! But, how exactly does knowledge of a program that monitors financial transactions put our troops in danger? Oh wait, how silly of me to forget. Obviously by my obsifucation of the point by trying to corralate emotions to fact makes me a terrorist, if only the government could enact some sort of program to secretly monitor this board you would all actually see I'm posting from Gitmo! It's a good thing that the only terrorists who value freedom post on "forums like these"

Yes, please, let's stop pretending we're things that we're not.

What the hell kind of retort is that? Was that just a very convoluted way of saying, "Well you're stupider!1!! "Is this where I say:

no, youshutup!?

I imagine you're used to it by now.

You guys have been doing a great job with the ratings. I have yet to see a post by Varus in anything other than quoted context.

Okay, show of hands: who here was actually surprised to read that the Feds are attempting to "follow the money" to track terrorist activities?

That wasn't the actual point of the Times story, which should be obvious to all. It's just a given, in fact, to anyone with a brain including but not limited to actual terrorists.

Dubya called the New York Times story "disgraceful." He said that "if you want to figure out what terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win the war on terror."

So, let's think about this. Did we really assume that terrorists would NOT know that we were following the money? Really. I'd like an honest answer from someone who agrees with the President on this, because honestly this makes absolutely no sense to me. If there are policy makers in Washington who sincerely believe that terrorists read the New York Times for clues about how the Feds are tracking terrorist activities, we're in worse trouble than I thought.