Hello, folks
This is my first time writing a diary and I'm doing it with a time limit, since I have to go to work soon. I figgered, however, I've done my best work under pressure of a deadline in the past, and I could use all the help I can get for this one.
Less than a week ago (Sunday, July 9), Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a piece calling into question just how bad the "leaks" published the NYT (and other SCLM newspapers) really are. Now for those who don't know, Chapman is no Liberal; he's a self-described Libertarian who has supported some of the the Prez's - and, by extension, the GOP's - fiscal policies. He's been really slamming the Shrub administration, however, on the Iraq occupation (which he's opposed from the start) and their domestic "anti-terrorist" agenda (e.g. spying on everyone with no oversight).
I urge you all to read the whole article here, but I want to emphasise his conclusion here:
Does the administration actually believe its own accusations? If it saw a grave danger in letting this information out, after all, it could have acted preemptively to keep it from ever seeing print. Though there was no guarantee of success, it had nothing to lose by trying.
-snip-
His decision not to ask a court to block these disclosures suggests one of two things. The first is that he knowingly exposed Americans to a danger he might have averted. The second--and more likely--is that he knew the revelations wouldn't actually compromise our security.
It's one thing for Bush to claim the stories did great harm. It's another for the administration to do what a court would have required: Prove it.
Has anyone in the SCLMSM asked this of Tony Snow or the Prez himself? I looked through the diaries and I didn't notice anyone else bringing this point up either. Personally, with all this NYT-bashing by the right-wingnuts, I think this point should be brought up everywhere it's occurring.
I actually "road-tested" this on another site for a RW talkshow host/smearmiester ( I won't say who) and I got the usual response of name-calling and talking around the issue as opposed to actually addressing it, but no one (and I've been checking back since then) has come up with a cogent argument to Chapman's conclusion.
Does that prove this argument is a "slam-dunk"? Of course not. Still, I believe it's one that needs to be brought up more often.
Edit:Aah, success! Thanks to those of you who advised me on how to embed a link. As you can see above, I just pulled it off. And thanks, too, to anyone who chose the "Erik is a babe" choice in the poll, but I gotta clarify something: I only put that there to be snarky and see if anyone would actually choose it. I'm married with 2 kids and not lookin' for love on DKos.
(Now if I could just figure out how to indent this paragraph...)