June 28, 2006

The New York Times vs. America

It worked so well with electronic surveillance, the New York Times has decided to try it again. And somewhere, Harry Reid surely gnashes his teeth.

Reid may be ineffectual, but the man is not dumb, and he surely knows when a dog that hasn’t hunted in the past is about to be given another try. But his most rabid constituents are still demanding blood, and there is little remaining doubt that the rabid folks on the left are now being led by the Times.

On Friday, June 23, the Times let loose with its latest scandalous revelation about the Bush administration’s sinister keeping of its promises. The administration has promised since 9/11 that it would take any measures necessary to prevent further terrorist attacks, and it specifically pledged to track financial activity to sniff out terrorists and cut off funding to Al Qaeda.

They did not promise to reveal all the specific methods they would use to accomplish this, as that sort of thing has a tendency to tip off the terrorists and render the entire effort ineffective.

Well, terrorists, no worries. That’s what the New York Times is for. Word began filtering around Washington in recent months that the Times was poking around and asking about a Brussels-based banking consortium known as SWIFT – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. SWIFT has access to tons of information about international financial transactions – the very kind of activity through which the 9/11 hijackers financed their operations, moving money from bank to bank in order to make their activity harder to track.

Various branches of the administration, including Treasury and the CIA, have worked closely with SWIFT since shortly after 9/11 to track such activity. The results have been impressive, including a big catch in the form of Brooklyn-based terrorist plotter Uzair Paracha, who was fingered as a result of the effort and convicted in 2005.

So when the word started to spread around Washington that the Times was on to the program, the administration went into high gear to try to protect the effort. Additional members of Congress were briefed. Current and former officials of both Democratic and Republican administrations were enlisted to plead with the Times to cease and desist, lest a crucial tool in the fight against terrorism be compromised.

No dice. Backed by its usual army of anonymous sources willing to illegally reveal classified information, the Times told all, even quoting its own executive editor, Bill Keller, to defend its decision. Keller claimed that it is in the “public interest” to let terrorists know how the U.S. government is tracking and catching them.

Which brings us back to Harry Reid. The poor man. He saw what happened when the Times tried this with the NSA wiretap program. It seemed like such a good plan at the time. Do an “expose” on how the Bush administration is threatening the privacy of Americans in the name of fighting terrorism. Have prominent Democrats denounce the nefarious outrage. Oh, it got Angry Left types foaming at the mouth, all right – even to the point that impeachment was being mentioned. The only problem was that the public never got exorcised about it. Polls consistently showed that the public supported the NSA wiretaps, and saw right through the attempts of the Democrats and the Times to score political points off it.

The Dems’ play on this issue was such a complete disaster that President Bush waved it in their faces by nominating the primary architect of the program, Gen. Michael Hayden, to run the CIA. He dared the Democrats to make an issue of NSA wiretapping in Hayden’s confirmation hearings. Reid, knowing the issue was a loser for Democrats, wisely directed them not to do so, and Hayden sailed through.

Harry Reid’s note to self: Appearing weak on terrorism doesn’t appear to be helping us. Better try something else.

But he didn’t send the memo to the Times, which has been reduced to soliciting leaks of classified information, putting said information in the most unflattering light possible and using it as a weapon in its war against George W. Bush.

Oh my God! They’re tracking banking records! Alert MoveOn.org! Get Howard Dean on Meet the Press! Harry Reid, when is your press conference?

Poor Harry. He doesn’t want to say a word. He’s moved on to “working families” or whatever other talking points of the week the Dems are trying to make stick to the wall. Weakness on terrorism? Hey. We gave it a shot. It’s time to go back to denouncing “the rich” – or something.

But someone forgot to tell the Times, where the war on Bush and everything he does continues unabated. Harry Reid understands well that NSA Wiretap II is going to do nothing to boost the fortunes of Democrats. Oh well. At least the terrorists appreciate the help.

This is Column # DC39. Request permission to publish here.