Right Wing Nut House

He didn’t come right out and say that, of course. But how else would you accomplish what he said about Hizbullah yesterday in Michigan:

Hezbollah guerillas should have been targeted with other terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaida and the Taliban, which operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kerry said. However, Bush, has focused military strength on Iraq.

“This is about American security and Bush has failed. He has made it so much worse because of his lack of reality in going into Iraq.…We have to destroy Hezbollah,” he said.

The only way to “destroy Hezbollah” is to do exactly what the Israelis are doing; invading Lebanon. And the fact that Bush has pretty much green lighted Israeli actions in doing so calls into question the rest of Kerry’s critique:

“If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John’s bar and grill in Detroit’s Cass Corridor.

Bush has been so concentrated on the war in Iraq that other Middle East tension arose as a result, he said.

“The president has been so absent on diplomacy when it comes to issues affecting the Middle East,” Kerry said. “We’re going to have a lot of ground to make up (in 2008) because of it.”

So if Kerry was President he would have destroyed Hizbullah but at the same time prevented the Israelis from doing so by stopping the current conflict before it started? That leaves one of two ways to get rid of Nasty Nasrallah and his bully boys; invade Lebanon with US troops or curse the terrorists and turn them into pillars of salt.

The advantage of the latter is that Lebanon is in need of more products to export and salt is in high demand in desert areas. The problem with the former is that if Kerry were President and he sent troops into Lebanon, our guys would have to fight with straitjackets on and wear great big wristwatches so that they would always be aware of the time and stick strictly to the timetable for withdrawal our Commander in Chief would set.

Since Kerry has made it plain this is how he would have fought the Iraq War, we have to assume this is how he would have conducted operations in Lebanon. How many terrorists this would have killed is beside the point. The important thing is our men would have fought the way liberals want to fight; not really hurting anyone while making sure the troops are home for Christmas.

God its going to be fun watching this guy run for President again.

Glenn Greenwald has the right wing internet all atwitter today. And the only thing that has been running through my mind as I’ve perused the gleeful “gotchyas!” and astounded “ah has!” from my fellow righty bloggers has been a sadness born of the realization that it matters not about Greenwald’s sock puppetry or resume padding. The left will still adore him. He will still have standing with the fawning, drooling mass of brainless twits who think his nonsensical screeds against conservatives has any merit whatsoever. And the gaggle of lefty bloggers who think he’s the second coming of William O. Douglas will continue to nod with vigorous approval at his vapid, empty absolutist denunciations of anything and everything the government does in its efforts to protect us.

In short, when all is said and done, tomorrow morning the sun will still come up in the east, set in the west, and Greenwald will yet be prattling on with pious protestations regarding his monk-like objectivity and political centrism while proving to all but the most willfully self deluded that he is a hypocritical weasel whose baseless, scurrilous screeds against all things conservative are the most rank fabrications of his hysterical, hateful mind.

But a record must be made nonetheless. And Dan Riehl, a true citizen-journalist, has taken the time and trouble to research Mr. Greenwald and what he reveals in this excellent post is enough to give any decent liberal pause to reflect on their cannonization of him as some kind of civic saint and ask some questions of their own about who he is and what manner of man they are in bed with.

Dan’s article deserves to be read in its entirety. But this brief excerpt gets to the nub of Greenwald’s problems with the truth as well as the curious group of far left liberals who seem to be behind his rise to stardom:

New York Times best selling author Glenn Greenwald appears to have written a book in an attempt to lecture American patriots on how to act politically when his primary and preferred residence isn’t even within the United States - it’s actually in Brazil. Perhaps How Would An Expatriate Act would have been a more fitting title.

Several statements said book’s publisher, Working Assets, currently uses to promote the book and author appear to be false. And while Greenwald’s Liberal blogging buddies recently lambasted conservative author Ann Coulter for alleged ethical transgressions - lifting copy from her columns for inclusion in her latest book, Godless, it seems as much as ten-percent or more of How Would A Patriot Act was actually “culled” from previously published material on the author’s popular blog, Unclaimed Territory, available free to all on the Internet.

He must be a liberal given his apparent fondness for re-cycling.

New York Times best selling author, Glenn Greenwald may also have allowed readers to assume something of an exaggerated perception of his professional credential with a prestigious New York City law firm. That’s less clear, but certainly Greenwald can clear it up. Still, once you get beyond Matthew Hale, the high profile case experience associated with Greenwald’s public image isn’t exactly obvious to even a somewhat more than casual observer. Perhaps that’s another item Greenwald will eventually get around to fleshing out.

There is evidence below of a larger effort to prop up both the book and his image as part of an orchestrated campaign to elevate his visibility and status and ensure that his anti-Bush punditry was picked up on by the MSM at a critical time.

Greenwald’s completely inadequate and typically disingenuous response is here. Not only is it inadequate, it’s confusing and doesn’t directly address many of Mr. Riehl’s points about his law practice that Greenwald, in fact, now claims is dormant.

And Greenwald glosses over the most serious ethical matter associated with the oppo research that has come to light recently thanks to some excellent research by Ace, Patterico, and Goldstein regarding the curious coincidence of 5 different commenters with 5 different names all having the same Internet Provider (IP) address - an address that Patterico has confirmed belongs to one Glenn Greenwald. In addition, the comments all contain basically the same “defense” of Mr. Greenwald - bragging of his accomplishments and belittling his opponents in exactly the same language.

Greenwald dismisses the charge:

Those in the same household have the same IP address. In response to the personal attacks that have been oozing forth these last couple of weeks, others have left comments responding to them and correcting the factual inaccuracies, as have I. In each case when I did, I have used my own name.

Is it possible that Mr. Greenwald’s partner left those comments under 5 different names? While that is certainly something to consider, it begs the question as to why his companion would use so many pseudonyms when his own name was suitably anonymous. And if Greenwald did in fact leave all of those comments, it would reveal a sickness of thought and reason not to mention a towering intellectual hubris that should worry anyone who takes the man with a modicum of seriousness.

In the end, however, he’s not worth the trouble. For all the work done by the bloggers I linked above, the fact of the matter is that Greenwald’s kind is a dime a dozen on the left. He and others of his ilk will continue to use drugstore psychology, over the top invective, hysterical fear mongering, and outright lies to smear their way to stardom. And unless there are those on the right ready to refute their lies, exaggerations, and laughable attempts at armchair psychoanalysis, they will continue to have the mouth breathing masses on the left groveling at their feet in worshipful and slavish devotion.

I pointed out when I first fisked one of Mr. Greenwald’s posts the monumental task it was to attempt and refute so many strawman arguments, obfuscations, exaggerations, and dissociative explanations for conservative ideology that spewed forth from Greenwald’s pen. It reminds me of why most reputable scientists won’t spend much time debunking their pseudoscience nemeses. It simply takes too long and really isn’t very interesting work.

In essence, Greenwald isn’t worth it.

UPDATE

This is the first line from Greenwald’s defense:

“As I’ve noted several times in the last couple of weeks, my focus on the lawlessness, extremist rhetoric and violence-inciting tactics of the Bush movement and its followers in the blogosphere…”

“Lawlessness?” Who? Where? What statute? Unless Mr. Greenwald now considers it criminal behavior to criticize the press or Bush haters like him (or perhaps make tasteless but perfectly legal jokes about stringing up reporters or Greenwald himself), I fail to see any lawbreaking in writing one’s thoughts down on a blog.

Civil liberties attorney? Maybe for Kim Jong Il.

Attention Hugh Hewitt Readers: The post Hugh was trying to link is here.

Let’s play a word game. We’ll call it “Word Nonsensing.” The object of the game is to make up words out of thin air and guess which ones would have the best chance of gaining wide acceptance and usage on the left.

Vagindisestablishmentarian. Noun. An anti-feminist. Or a conservative wanker.

Republifantakluxer. Noun. Someone who thinks all Republicans are racists. Or Dave Neiwert. Or, a conservative wanker.

Mascupenamourocon. Noun. Someone who is anti-gay rights. Or, a male blogger who thinks he’s a conservative. Or a conservative wanker.

Elminationist. Adjective. Describing rhetoric used by a conservative that a liberal disagrees with. Or, (n)someone in the act of peeing. Or, a conservative wanker.

Each of those words above are made up out of whole cloth. There is no English language dictionary on the planet that contains any of them. And yet, when trying to stifle debate about many of their cockamamie ideas (or simply to demonize the opposition) the left routinely invents words like “eliminationist.” This kind of disrespect toward language is par for the course as the lexicon of the New Left has been used as an effective public weapon against the right for nearly 50 years.

Certainly the English language is constantly in flux and words fall in and out of usage. Also, about 20,000 new words come into usage in any given year. But it isn’t so much the fact that the word is created but rather the reason it is used and the context in which it is applied.

This post is a perfect example. To call a liberal or liberal ideas “evil” does not in the slightest imply that the purveyor of the idea should be “eliminated.” And yet, such a construct is used routinely on the left in order to stifle debate on an issue that they do not wish to discuss or that they want to turn the tables on their conservative interlocutor in such a way as to delegitimize their critique.

Accusing a liberal of “treason” or of being a “traitor” may be hyperbole but it is not hate speech. I find it fascinating that liberals would be so touchy about being tarred with these epithets seeing that they find they words “patriotism” and “patriot” so problematic, “the last refuge of scoundrels” being a common add-on whenever the terms are used.

In short, the use of this made up word has become a convenient way for the left to ascribe almost criminal behavior to the right. It even extends to the use of humor and satire. The most recent kerfluffle involves Glenn Greenwald’s spectacularly ignorant take on “violence inciting” rhetoric used by the right.

It is perhaps de rigeur of moronic nincompoops like Glenn Greenwald that a kind of grim humorlessness permeates their writing. Portraying conservatives as homicidal racists or thuggish homophobes is serious, exhausting work. No time for laughter. No room for humor. The very concepts are alien, as if cracking a smile will cause an immediate and irreversible case of the jollies. Joking about “hanging journalists” or judges, or liberals for that matter is cause for an outpouring of the most hysterical, over the top, exaggerated, laughably overwrought spleen venting screeds imaginable. Does he really believe that conservative bloggers are serious about hanging another human being? Or that Ann Coulter (talk about over the top) is actually calling for judges to be executed? Or that any conservative polemicist, in the process of skewering liberals for one sort of idiocy or another, actually wishes physical harm to befall their target?

Perhaps when liberals talk about “feces flinging monkeys” and conservatives in the same breath we should take them to task for forcing animals to behave badly and call the ASPCA on them. Better yet, maybe the next time Mr. Hysterical uses the word “eliminationist” when talking about some right wing blogger who makes a joke about liberals, conservatives should empty their bladders on Greenwald’s book. After all, it’s not enough to use “eliminationist” rhetoric. We should practice being bladder eliminationists in real life. Besides, by peeing on his book, it will alleviate the stench of arrogant, self righteous, miasmic absolutism that wafts from its pages like a malodorous cheese.

I’m with Dan Riehl. I’ve had it with this guy. The bile he spews toward the right is beyond the normal mud wrestling and eye-gouging of political warfare. It has a special kind of frantic paranoia to it, as if he’s hiding under the bed and saving the republic from conservative perfidy at the same time. Delusional, a fantasist, and as Patterico has pointed out, an out and out liar, I am sick to death of him.

Begone and be good, Glenn. And if I were you and saw someone wearing a “Karl Rove Rocks!” T-shirt walking toward me carrying a rope, I’d shoot first and ask questions later.

This will necessarily be one of the most difficult posts I will ever write. Not because of the subject matter, mind you. It’s the way I type.

You see, in order to maintain the family-friendly nature of this site (can’t you see all those impressionable little 10 year olds clicking over to the House in order to discover the latest in the Glenn Greenwald soap opera? Or perhaps to pick up the latest inventive invective I spew toward the left?), I made it a hard and fast rule that I not spell out 3 of the more colorful metaphors in the English language.

You know which ones they are. I know which ones they are. I know you know which ones they are just like you know that I know which ones they are which means I don’t have to repeat them. The fact that my site is on the sh*t list in most libraries across the country already due to its “racist, sexist, homophobic” (did you forget anti-illegal immigrant?) slant, just makes my care to not use vulgarity on the site all the more puzzling. Chalk it up to a residual belief in Catholicism that posits the notion that my mother is reading what I write up in heaven. A pleasant thought, that. On the other hand, she was a Roosevelt liberal so I’m sure she clucks her tongue at some of the things that end up on this website.

Since I have voluntarily rejected spelling out completely the word “sh*t” and substituting the ubiquitous star, I might as well reveal that I am not a very good typist. Don’t ask me why but I only use three fingers on my left hand and one on my right. Weird, huh? Of course, that means that getting my fingers up to that sh*tty star on the keyboard can get to be a real f**king nuisance, ya know what I mean? I mean, sometimes I feel like a real paste eater when typing.

Maybe I should get some pointers from Goldstein on that. Or maybe TBogg could be helpful in this respect; he was one of the first to refer to Goldstein as a paste eater. Obviously, he knows all about paste eating - not much else - but paste eating seems to fall within the scope of his knowledge.

At any rate, what brought this unfortunate subject up is that absolute sh*tstorm that has been unleashed all because the President of the United States used the word “sh*t” at the G-8 banquet last night. And every lefty blogger in Christendom (if they believed in that sort of thing) is writing about it, linking each other in a frenzy of chattiness and gossip mongering reminiscent of 12 year old girls at a slumber party. Since liberals usually behave like 12 year old drama queens anyway, I’m sure they’re comfortable as hell feeling themselves up on the subject.

I know, I know…one would think that considering the mouth on some former occupants of the White House who will go unrecognized that the left wouldn’t be casting stones so close to glass houses. He-with-the-constantly-unflaccid-penis swore like a sailor as did his wife: She-who-throws-ashtrays-like-frisbees. But to be fair, the drama queens are also chattering about other things the President said.

As he chats with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bush expresses amazement that it will take Putin and an unidentified leader just as long to fly home to Moscow as it will take him to fly back to Washington. Putin’s reply could not be heard.

“You eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. Takes him eight hours to fly home. Not Coke, diet Coke. … Russia’s big and so is China. Yo Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving,” Bush said.

I have a challenge for you liberals out there. Bug your neighbor and tape his conversations for a couple of days. This has two advantages. First, you’ll be doing us all a favor (including the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, the DIA, DHS, and probably a couple of super-duper secret agencies we know nothing about but that you’re paranoid of anyway) by ascertaining whether or not your next door neighbor is a terrorist. But more importantly, you’ll discover what human beings talk about during their waking hours.

The Nobel Prize winning playwright (and anti-American dolt) Harold Pinter used to go to the park near his flat in London, sit on a bench, and listen to people talk. What he found was absolutely startling. In their unguarded moments, even people who’ve known each other for 50 years talk about nothing at all. Pinter’s plays are full of disjointed, disconnected dialogue that works because everyone recognizes it for what it truly is; the grunts and sighs, the vocalizations of human beings talking not to communicate but to assure each other that they mean each other no harm. In short, people talk like Bush do in order to put people at ease in a social situation. (I’d love to see Dr. Sanity delve into this).

Those fellows at the summit don’t know each other all that well - not in the biblical sense (although watching creepy Putin kiss that kid on the stomach last week chilled my bones) and certainly not in the way that long time friends relate to each other. Making polite small talk as Bush was doing was a fascinating example of Pinterian dialogue. His comments about Russia’s size, the time it takes to fly home, and especially his recognition that Blair was leaving - all of this could have been lifted from a Pinter play. It’s how everyone talks. And the fact that it doesn’t sound “Presidential” or “intelligent” shouldn’t surprise us.

It is strange and fascinating to catch a President in the act of being human. But of course, there was also the President expressing what was clearly frustration at the United Nations for not getting on Syria’s tail and getting Hizballah to stop shooting and face facts:

Bush expressed his frustration with the United Nations and his disgust with the militant Islamic group and its backers in Syria as he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the closing lunch at the Group of Eight summit.

“See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this sh*t and it’s over,” Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

Ezra Klein not only puts the entire incident in perspective, but recognizes how low “political reporting” has fallen:

That’s a big deal: Bush believes it within the Syrian government’s power to calm the conflict. Theoretically, that should have major implications for American diplomacy and, possibly, policy. So what’s CNN’s headline? “Open mic catches Bush expletive on Mideast”! The story is not that his substantive views on the issue have been uncovered, but that the president curses. Indeed, the article even speculates on how such a stunner slipped out, arguing that “the escalating crisis in the Middle East prompted him to use an expletive in a conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.”

This is your press corps. The President has a potty mouth is a more pressing story than the President believe sufficient pressure on the sovereign nation of Syria could be the key to ending an intensely volatile war in the Middle East. What a proud day for my profession.

Don’t get out the self-flagellating whip quite yet. Not when every top lefty blog is all atwitter over the President’s potty mouth. Saying sh*t out loud in a public place may have lost almost all of its shock value since the left has degraded language and meaning. But all of that is forgotten when Bush uses the term. All of a sudden, the word is indicative of the President’s (please choose only one) 1) incoherence, 2) simple mindedness, 3) confusion, 4) lack of vocabulary, or 5) stupidity. I suppose when an intellectual like TBogg or Jane Hamsher uses the word, it’s fraught with subtext and meaning. But when our Texas President uses it, it just shows what a sh*tkicking cracker he truly is.

I am glad I am finished writing now. Reaching for that star was getting to be a pain in the ass. Almost as hard as typing the words “intelligent” and “liberal” when they’re right next to each other.

Thankfully, I’ve had no occasion that I can recall offhand where my fingers were called upon to make that kind of effort.

By now, you’ve probably been made aware of the despicable attack on Jeff Goldstein’s family from a University of Arizona professor of psychology named Deb Frisch. If you’ve been out of circulation lately, you can get the story from Blackfive here.

Short version: Frisch made a series of what can only be termed threats against Jeff and his two year old son. The threats were both violent and sexual in nature, referring to the Jon Bennet Ramsey case and expressing the desire that Jeff’s son suffer the same fate.

This is not hate speech. Nor is it name calling. Nor is it, as the good professor has tried to minimize on her blog “over the line of nastiness.” The only line it is over is perhaps a legal line that should, if there is a prosecutor on the ball in Tempe, Arizona, result in Frisch being frog marched to either the nearest detention center or wrapped in a straitjacket and thrown into a rubber room at the local insane asylum.

Aberrational behavior on the part of one loony lefty? Or symptomatic of an ideology that enables and indeed encourages its adherents to see political opponents as sub-human or retarded and thus, expendable?

We apparently will not fully discover the answer to that question because there has not been one single blogger on the left - not a one - who has seen fit to condemn Frisch’s threats against Goldstein and his family. This despite the fact that the story has been out there for more than 48 hours, an eternity in Blogland.

And then there’s the curious coincidence of two separate denial of service attacks on Goldstein’s website. I will be very interested to see where that DOS originated from and why it occurred when it did. As I write this, Jeff’s blog is still down and he has informed PJ Media that he won’t be up for a couple of days.

High profile conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin and Little Green Footballs have been hit by DOS attacks in the last several months and the company Hosting Matters (Instapundit, Powerline, Captains Quarters among many) has also been under constant assault. Is this the best the left can do? I may simply not be paying much attention, but has this level of DOS attacks occurred on lefty sites? It wouldn’t surprise me necessarily if it did but the fact that the attacks on righty bloggers seem to be more frequent in the last 6 months or so, one has to ask the question; what are liberals so afraid of that they feel compelled to silence their most visible critics?

All of those bloggers who have called Goldstein a “paste eater” are nowhere to be found when it comes to policing their own ranks and thus have aligned themselves with Frisch and her criminal behavior. Silence implies assent in my book. And the fact that liberals have taken absolutely no interest in this incident is deplorable. Ann Coulter comes out with one of her loony toons remarks about killing Supreme Court justices and several dozen righty bloggers, many of them prominent, jump down her throat. Deb Frisch threatens physical harm against a two year old and gets a pass from the left.

What does that say about the moral fiber of the netnuts? Methinks they ate it to improve their regularity.

UPDATE: FROM THE “THAT WAS QUICK” DEPARTMENT

Michelle Malkin is reporting that Frisch has evidently “resigned.” Or been fired. I won’t link to the criminal’s blogsite but Michelle has the gist of the post:

…wrote some inflammatory comments at a blog by a guy named Jeff Goldstein called protein wisdom that infuriated many bloggers and commenters. Many of these bloggers emailed my boss at the University of Arizona to tell on me.

In hindsight, the things I wrote were over the line of nastiness. I apologize to Mr. Goldstein.

I have resigned from the University of Arizona so there is no need for other enraged people to write to administrators there.

The loon is also playing the victim card:

Some blogs have posted comments that I perceive to be physically threatening. I have contacted the FBI and the Pajamas Media staff to determine how to proceed with this aspect of this unbelievable experience.

My intention in this post is to de-escalate the situation. The comments that started this all were nasty, not threatening. But I feel very threatened by the response.

Jeff - I lost my job. You won. Could you call off the troops?

After picking my jaw up off the floor, I decided to see if any liberals were taking her to task in the comments to the post. Here’s one:

You really succeeded in making liberals look like psychopaths. Can you do the rest of us a favor, and either stop posting entirely, of join the Republican Party?

Well…it’s a start. Kit, one of the hosts of Wideawakes Radio (WAR Radio) which is set to re-launch tomorrow morning summed it up nicely in her comments:

You post a large number of comments on a conservative blogger’s site that not only make references to killing, but also sexually abusing his 2-year-old child. (And that’s not counting the insults to his wife.)

If you’ve truly quit your job, then I’m glad. You are not qualified or competent to teach American college students.

Frisch can evidently dish it out but not take it as she has apparently deleted several comments from the string on that post.

Finally, a commenter called “Liberal Avenger” weighs in with just the proper amount of compassion and stupidity:

I was under the impression that you were/are suffering from some sort of mental illness in making those comments. If that is the case, seek help - but don’t resign from your job. You needn’t lose your job because of this.

1. Call your boss and tell him that you are un-resigning
2. See a mental health professional if you aren’t seeing one already
3. Ignore the hypocritical wingnuts here who pretend as if what you did was some enormous crime against decency. It wasn’t. What you did was stupid and misguided. Conservative bloggers are masters at being stupid and misguided.

Poor wittle Debwah. All she did was refer to a two year old in a sexual manner and make threats against his person. I mean, after all, the kid belongs to a conservative so anything goes, right?

Maybe Mr. Avenger and Frisch can go a-vistiting to the same shrink.

UPDATE II: 7/9

I see where this site has been linked by a couple of liberal blogs who are complaining that I’m asking them to “apologize” for Frisch’s behavior when the mad doctor is a nothing blogger and that after all, what goes on in Iraq is the real obscenity.

I can find no mention on any conservative blog of anyone asking the left to “apologize” for not posting on this subject. But a little solidarity with the right in condemning this outrageous and frightening behavior would have been appropriate and appreciated.

As I mention in the post, this story was out there for 48 hours (6th story from the bottom of Memorandum on early Friday morning) and nary a peep of condemnation was heard from anyone on the left until Confederate Yankee’s post about the silence of the left on this issue was disseminated. Then, there were mostly mild rebukes of Frisch made in passing with the real thrust of most lefty writings being that they shouldn’t have to “apologize” for Frisch and that conservatives do it too, or do it worse.

And I refuse to back down from the statement that liberalism “enables and indeed encourages its adherents to see political opponents as sub-human or retarded and thus, expendable…” When most major league lefty bloggers can refer to Goldstein as a “paste eater” and Ed Morrissey as “retarded” I would say that it becomes understandable why Frisch’s statements would not be condemned and, under most circumstances, probably applauded by the likes of TBogg, Maha, Jane Hamsher, Digby, and the unheavenly host of lefties who believe themselves to be the moral and intellectual superiors of conservatives.

What the freepers did in encouraging harm against employees of the New York Times and their families was despicable and they should be roundly and soundly condemned for their advocacy of such action. The same goes for anyone, anywhere, of any ideological stripe who advocates violence or harassment of any kind against anyone.

That said, politics is a full contact sport. And liberals who whine about being called out for either their rhetoric or lack of moral courage should take their complaints somewhere else. Don’t bring them here.

Glenn Greenwald is almost never right about anything. He is an hysteric, a red meat partisan Democrat (who piously rejects that label despite being outed recently as a member of the partisan Democrat email list “Townhouse”). He can be acerbic, cranky, and a serial exaggerator of laughable proportions. He is also smart, passionate, and a dyed in the wool defender of our civil liberties, one of the most articulate in the blogosphere.

If you get the idea that I have mixed feelings about Greenwald, you would be correct. I generally find his critiques of conservatives unbelievably shallow, almost grotesque in the cartoonish and simple minded way he paints the right. He natters. He takes forever to make a simple point (something I’ve been guilty of more than once). And to top it all off, he’s popular and gets tons of traffic, thus awakening the green monster of jealously in me and stimulating the id to take over my unconscious mind, forcing me to imagine all sorts of foul things that could befall his blog.

But today, I’m agreeing with him:

One Bush follower after the next who has been furiously protesting the publication of leaks by the NYT and other newspapers — almost all of whom has accused the NYT of treason, of providing aid and comfort to their Al Qaeda friends, etc. for reporting leaked classified information — have written today about this leaked story. But all of them are ecstatic over this story, celebrating it as a great and heroic blow for the Bush administration and as proof that The Terrorists really are the Epic Threat they’ve been claiming. And almost none of them are protesting the unauthorized leak, let alone calling for the reporters and editors at the Daily News to be sent to gas chambers or put in federal prison for the rest of their lives.

Their celebratory reaction to this leak is particularly noteworthy given that the Daily News article itself acknowledged that its source told it that the leaked law enforcement investigation “is an ongoing operation.” And the FBI claims that this leak has jeopardized foreign intelligence sources.

Before I pat Greenwald on the back, let me bash him over his pointy head. The only debate about the efficacy of the press publishing secrets in wartime is occurring on the right. The question of whether or not to arrest and try the reporters and editors who publish these stories has been a topic of heated debate only among conservatives. As usual, Greenwald’s critique is shallow and off target.

The left, as with almost every other issue involving national security, has failed to engage in any kind of serious colloquy, even among themselves, as to the national security implications of these leaks. Instead, all we get is the ridiculous notion that the information shouldn’t have been classified in the first place because al-Qaeda already knows everything we’re doing to track them so publishing stories that detail our methods is perfectly alright because the government is violating our civil liberties. The fact that we don’t know enough about how these programs actually work to make that kind of determination doesn’t stand in the way of the left when their on a roll politicizing national security.

No one can take their argument that al-Qaeda is in the know about all of our tracking methods seriously. Which is why despite the many sins committed by Republicans in managing the government, the Democrats are by no means assured of taking over Congress in November. As much as the American people dislike Republicans, they simply don’t trust the Democrats on national security matters. Nor will they until the left begins to engage Republicans on the issues and not the politics of keeping the country safe.

But Greenwald has made a point that many on the right cannot dispute today. The fact of the matter is that publishing details of this investigation has harmed our ability to keep the United States of America safe and we shouldn’t be ignoring this fact in order to make cheap political points at the expense of the left.

The damage done in impairing our ability to prevent another attack on this country was severe:

Disclosure of the bomb plot coincided with the one-year anniversary of a terrorist bomb attack on London subways and a bus that killed 52 and injured about 700. Authorities said they hadn’t intended to release details about the plot this early and that whoever leaked the information had compromised the FBI’s relationship with some foreign intelligence services.

The person who leaked the details is clearly someone who doesn’t understand the fragility of international relations,” Mershon said. “We’ve had a number of uncomfortable questions and some upsetment (sic) with these foreign intelligence services that had been working with us on a daily basis.”

Whether the leak came from the Administration or from a foreign source doesn’t matter. Cooperation with other intel agencies is absolutely vital to ferreting out the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States and any diminution of that cooperation is a blow to our security. It is clear that the New York Daily News should be placed in the same boat as the New York Times and other publications that use unauthorized leaks to either sell newspapers, make political hay, or both.

Greenwald makes another point that needs to be aired here; the rank hypocrisy on the right when it comes to the issue of national security leaks in general. As he points out, this isn’t the first time that there have been leaks showing the Administration on the ball that has had the right celebrating the government’s watchfulness. Consistency may be “the hobgoblin of little minds” as Emerson said but it should also be a faithful friend in politics. One can’t pick and choose which leaks are efficacious and which are detrimental. You and I are simply unqualified to make such judgements.

All of this being said, I can’t resist linking to this article in Raw Story that seeks to downplay the plot, thus re-enforcing the notion that the left is unserious about our security:

One former intelligence field officer says, and two other CIA officials confirm, that the alleged plot by Muslim extremists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York City was nothing more than chatter by unaffiliated individuals with no financing or training in an open forum already monitored extensively by the United States Government, RAW STORY has learned.

“The so-called New York tunnel plot was a result of discussions held on an open Jihadi web site,” said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and contributor to American Conservative magazine, in a late Friday afternoon conversation. Although Giraldi acknowledges that the persons involved – “three of whom have already been arrested in Lebanon and elsewhere - are indeed extremists,” their online chatter is considerably overblown by allegations of an actual plot.

“They are not professionally trained terrorists, however, and had no resources with which to carry out the operation they discussed,” Giraldi added. “Despite press reports that they had asked Abu Musab Zarqawi for assistance, there is no information to confirm that. It is known that the members discussed the possibility of approaching Zarqawi but none of them knew him or had any access to him.”

There is every reason to take any plot, or “chatter,” or fantasies like this seriously. Even the article admits these perps are extremists with the desire to carry out such an attack. As we have seen to our endless sorrow, couple that desire with a fanatical determination to succeed and you get Mohammed Atta and 9/11. And the fact that Raw Story and most of the left would, in the aftermath of such an attack, skewer the Administration for not believing the extremists were serious only shows how truly frightening the prospect of the Democrats having their quaking hands on any of the levers that control our national security would be.

UPDATE

Pundit Guy has a perfect counterpoint to the left’s downplaying of this threat:

Have we become so far removed from that day in September of 2001 that we now criticize the very people who work 24/7 to protect us from being killed? Isn’t this the kind of complacency that the terrorists hope will spread through America, just so they can once more catch us asleep at the wheel?

In their eagerness to score political points about “fearmongering,” liberals have once again demonstrated that they are unfit to command. The American people will not elect those who have either forgotten 9/11 or who believe it didn’t change much.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

To hear many on the left tell us, our republic is held in thrall by a mass murdering dictator. He regularly tramples on our constitutional guarantees of privacy. He flouts the law at his leisure. With a crack of his whip, he bids his minions in Congress to slavishly pass enabling legislation that dirties our water and air, makes rich his cronies, clandestinely establishes a Christian caliphate right here in America, and secretly plots with corporations to steal elections.

And to make matters worse, this tyrant of a man is able to do all this by hoodwinking vast swaths of America’s electorate; that is, of course, unless you’ve been given God’s good grace to glean the truth from a “lapdog” press who have been hypnotized by their corporate masters to under report, misreport, and simply ignore all these horrific doings in our nation’s capitol. For in the end, it is those that prove themselves immune from this Napoleon’s magic spells who will save our republic and bring peace, freedom, and justice back to the galaxy.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

The left’s “riot of conceits” as R. Emmett Tyrell puts it, have never been more pronounced than when they raise the specter of Bush as dictator. It is not a new charge levelled against American Presidents. Even legends like Jackson and Lincoln had detractors who accused them of ruling with the iron fist of tyranny. And while both of those worthies defied the Supreme Court for one reason or another, in retrospect we can see that their actions fell far short of even the dictionary definition of dictator which defines the word as “one holding complete autocratic control” or “one ruling absolutely and often oppressively.”

But the actual definition of words has never stopped the left when it comes to erecting politically correct strawmen. “Racism,” sexism,” homophobia,” and “dictator” have meaning beyond the common usage of those terms that the rest of us, bound by tradition and respect for the English language, are constrained from following. In short, if the left wants to define dictatorship down, who’s going to stop them?

Certainly not Philip Slater, former chairman of the Brandeis University Sociology department, who wrote in The Huffington Post:

“Why are some patriotic Americans supporting a president who seems so bent on destroying America–America’s constitution, America’s democracy, America’s good name, America’s credibility, America’s land, air, and water, America’s solvency, America’s educational system, America’s security, America’s children, and America’s future…”

(HT: The New Editor)

Slater doesn’t use the word “dictator” in his article, but I daresay if he actually believes George Bush is destroying “America’s constitution” and “America’s democracy,” the implication can’t be anything less than his belief in Bush as tyrant. This from a man who advocates constitutionally destroying the presidency by separating the functions of Head of State from Chief Executive - an interesting construct in that the good professor nominates the actor Morgan Freeman to fill the same symbolic role played by Queen Elizabeth II in the British system. Perhaps someone should get in touch with Mr. Freeman’s agent and see if he’s available for a long running government gig. Since I haven’t seen him much in the movies lately, I’m sure he’d jump at the chance.

And who can forget CNN’s curmudgeonly host Jack Cafferty opining on air following the revelation back in May that NSA computers were gathering vast numbers of telephone records looking for patterns that would lead the machines to reveal terrorists and their sympathizers here in the United States. With flashing eyes and jutted chin, Cafferty thanked God that Senator Arlen Specter was asking questions about the program because “He might be all that’s standing between us and a full-blown dictatorship in this country.”

Leave aside for a moment the comical idea of Arlen Specter as democracy’s White Knight and examine Cafferty’s contention that Specter was alone in standing against the Administration in their march toward gathering absolute power unto themselves. The program had been vetted by lawyers from both the Justice Department and the NSA and appropriate Members of Congress informed. For the latter, the President can, in special circumstances, inform only the “Big Eight” in sensitive matters of national security which include the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate as well as the Chair and Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committees of both houses. This was done as it also had been done with the NSA intercept program revealed last December by the New York Times.

One can argue whether or not this consultation was enough in light of the invasive nature of both of those programs. This is legitimate debate - one that we will be having for as long as there is a war against Islamism. The tension between civil liberties and national security in a free society is inevitable, especially in time of war. But in case the left hasn’t noticed, dictators don’t “consult” anyone about anything. Just ask Hugo Chavez.

The Venezuelan tyrant recently received a boost in this country from that Icon of the Anti-Establishment Left, the Rosa Parks of the Anti War Movement, Cindy Sheehan who said yesterday that she would rather live in Chavez-led Venezuela than George Bush’s America. While Sheehan’s anti-war, anti-Semitic, and anti-American rants have been well documented, it is her obscenity laced descriptions of George Bush as Tyrant in Chief that the press has tip-toed around in a rather gingerly fashion:

The US government is now ruled by murderous hypocrites…criminals who should be arrested, charged appropriately, confined behind bars.”

“Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs…gangsters who lust after fortunes and power; never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far.”

“The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush.”

The press aren’t the only ones trying to disengage from Mrs. Sheehan’s unbalanced diatribes against the President. Democratic politicians who once fawned and feted the Goddess of Peace have turned their backs on this mother of all whackos. But her support remains strong among the netnuts on the internet who still believe, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd once said, that Sheehan has “absolute moral authority” when talking about George Bush and the war.

And that is the nub of the left’s argument; that George Bush is either an aspiring dictator or already a de-facto member of that exclusive club. In order to see Bush as unprincipled tyrant, one must be wearing the special glasses that allow the viewer to see the unseen, to read between the lines of stories from a press too frightened and cowed to tell the truth of what is really going on in the Administration.

The fact that some fairly intelligent people actually believe this would be shocking except for the fact that we live in extraordinary times that have caused us to degenerate into a society where it is perfectly reasonable to think the absolute worst of your political or ideological opponent. Both right and left are guilty of this myopia, although the liberal left has taken political opposition and ascribed actual evil to their nemesis.

Jeff Jacoby’s article yesterday in the Boston Globe made the point that the Administration’s reaction to the Hamdan decision should, in normal times, put to rest any idea that George Bush was seeking to rule by dictatorial fiat:

President Bush learns the court’s ruling in Hamdan has gone against him. A five-justice majority held the military commissions created by the administration to try the Guantanamo detainees are invalid, since they were never authorized by congressional statute. The justices seem to have repudiated Bush’s claim that the Constitution invests the president with sweeping unilateral authority in wartime. “The court’s conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground,” Justice Stephen Breyer pointedly notes in a concurrence. “Congress has not issued the Executive a `blank check.’ ”

Whereupon Bush says — what? “The justices have made their decision; now let them enforce it?” Something even more acidic? Perhaps he repeats a statement he has made previously — “I’m the decider, and I decide what is best”?

Not quite. He says he takes the court’s decision “seriously.” A few moments later he says it again. And then comes this: “We’ve got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress, if that’s available, to solve the problem.” There is no disdain. No bravado. No criticism. Just an acknowledgment that the Supreme Court has spoken and the executive branch will comply.

Some dictator.

Alas, while the Administration has already begun working with Congress to lay out the specifics in order to comply with the ruling, the left has conveniently ignored this bursting of their dictator balloon and kept up a steady drumbeat of ever wilder notions that Bush is the second coming of Ivan the Terrible. This criticism of Jacoby’s reasoned article is from the liberal blog Shakespeare’s Sister:

Failure to even mention in passing the rigorous endeavors of the Bush administration to undermine checks and imbalance the three branches of government is the least of his omissions, however. Perhaps the most important person who Jacoby fails to mention in his list of “D-word” spouting lunatics, is Bush himself.

“You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.” (Governing Magazine 7/98) — From Paul Begala’s “Is Our Children Learning?”

“I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don’t agree with each other, but that’s OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” — CNN.com, December 18, 2000

“A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it. ” — Business Week, July 30, 2001

Convicted out of his own mouth? Or the freely elected President of the United States stating the obvious?

The above is revealing in that for the dedicated lefty, it is impossible to take anything the President says as he means it. It is necessary instead to substitute a meaning wholly irrelevant to the issue the President was raising - an issue commented on in one form or another by every President in history - in order to validate a set of beliefs that places the commenter in the privileged position of knowing something hidden from the rest of us; that because dictatorship is “easier” it follows that Bush wishes to be one.

As we approach the end of the President’s constitutionally mandated term in office, I have no doubt we will see rampant speculation on the left about whether or not Bush will in fact engineer another terrorist attack and use it as an excuse to remain in office regardless of who wins the Presidential election in 2008. Like the certainty espoused by liberals during the 2004 election that Bush would re-institute military conscription and other idiotic “sure things,” I’m convinced that on January 20, 2009 when the next President takes the oath of office, all the talk of Bush as dictator will disappear overnight and the left’s rhetorical slings and arrows will be readied for the next occupant of the oval office who incurs their displeasure.

Unless she’s a Democrat, of course.

The Senate resolution sponsored by John Kerry two weeks ago would have required American forces to leave Iraq within one year of its passage.

I wonder what he thinks now that 11 insurgent groups have indicated they want to give our forces twice as long to quit the country?

Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks — including those on American troops — if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Withdrawal is the centerpiece of a set of demands from the groups, which operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces are increasingly violent and attacks there have crippled oil and commerce routes.

The groups who’ve made contact have largely shunned attacks on Iraqi civilians, focusing instead on the U.S.-led coalition forces. Their offer coincides with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s decision to reach out to the Sunni insurgency with a reconciliation plan that includes an amnesty for fighters.

When groups that are killing American soldiers recognize that a precipitous withdrawal of American troops would be bad for their country given the tenuous security situation, one has to wonder if the 13 Senate Democrats who voted for Kerry’s cut and run resolution are more eager to hand a victory to the insurgency - a large chunk of which now wants to negotiate - than they are to achieve even a modicum of peace and stability in Iraq.

In short, the enemy is willing to give our troops more time to succeed than John Kerry.

And this guy still wants to be President?

I understand that many of my conservative friends - and even Arlen Specter, the hypocritical bastard - are in favor of the proposed amendment that the Senate will start debating today on criminalizing the burning of the American flag.

But in a nation born of dissent, it seems to me that passing an amendment that would contradict one of the main things the flag represents is not only wrong but does an injustice to those who fought and died to protect it.

I know I’ll get a lot of flack for that last statement. But how meaningful can a heroes’ death be if we place a limit on what he died for? Must we also pass an amendment saying that this religion or that religion is outlawed? Should we amend the Constitution to prevent the New York Times from publishing all secrets? Perhaps we should have an amendment that outlaws lobbying? Or that limits demonstrations against the government?

We’d never think of amending the Constitution for any of those things. Even the New York Times, arrogant and self righteous though they may be, must be allowed to decide whether or not to publish information that may harm national security. We don’t like it. We believe they did it because, at bottom, they disagree with the government’s contention that we are at war and that publishing secrets gives aid and comfort to the enemy. But in the end, they must not be prevented from making their own judgments in such matters because to limit their decision making also puts prior restraint on their ability to publish. That is de facto censorship and cannot be allowed in a free society.

Living in America ain’t easy. This is a country that re-invents itself every few years, putting enormous strain on people to adapt. But there must be some things in America that should never change. And one of those things is the right to dissent in any way that does not harm another person or their property. Putting restraints on how someone dissents is the same as limiting their ability to disagree. Yes there are better ways to dissent than burning the flag. But who are you or I to tell anyone else that?

Burning the flag is hurtful, stupid, and reveals the dissenter to be more interested in provoking people than in making a statement against the government. But there’s no law against being an idiot. If that were the case, most politicians would be thrown in the slammer. Here’s Arlen Specter supporting the flag burning amendment:

Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, compared the measure to Supreme Court decisions banning so-called “fighting words,” slander, libel, obscenity and pornography involving children. As such, he said, it has no “social value.”

“Flag burning is a form of expression that is spiteful or vengeful,” the five-term Pennsylvania Republican said during the debate. “It is designed to hurt. It is not designed to persuade.”

This from a man who has been on the Administration’s case over the NSA intercept program because of his own extraordinarily narrow interpretation of privacy rights. All of a sudden, he wants to radically broaden the definition of “fighting words?”

If we outlawed all political speech that wasn’t meant to persuade, we’d have to tape the mouths shut of every politician in the country, starting with Specter. And how in God’s name did child pornography get into the debate over flag burning? And who said that child porn had any connection whatsoever to the “fighting words” doctrine?

Specter and the Republicans in the Senate are pandering, pure and simple. I don’t mind it so much when they push something like the so called Marriage Amendment that hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of passing. That kind of pandering is constitutionally harmless just because it will never pass. (Whether or not the issue is hurtful to gays is another issue entirely). But political posturing in support of this amendment that would limit the way people dissent is a different story. Mucking around with the Constitution for political gain is wrong. I felt the same way about ERA, the balanced budget, and the abortion amendments. Fooling around with the Constitution is deadly serious business which is why it has been amended only 17 times since the Bill of Rights became law.

I think this is the third post I’ve done on this issue and each time received varying rebukes from my readers for believing both flag burning and amending the constitution to criminalize it is wrong.

Hopefully, I won’t have to write another for a long, long time.

UPDATE

The amendment, needing two thirds to pass, fell short of passage by one vote 66-34. Here are the gory details.

Would it have passed 37 state legislatures and made part of the Constitution? That’s something I hope we never have to find out.

“Wild Bill” Keller appeared on television last night in what can only be described as “the friendliest forum available” - on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. Since Keller deigned not to explain his decision to publish information on the top secret wire transfer monitoring program in his arrogant and rather cryptic “letter” to readers in yesterday’s edition, he counted on Blitzer not to dig too deeply into his motivations and instead allow him to skate through relatively unscathed.

Good move, Bill. With anger taking on something of a bi-partisan tone for the first time in years (at least outside the blogs where liberals insist that this is one more indication that Bush is Hitler without the mustache and jack boots), Keller probably realized he couldn’t hide under his desk forever and not pretend to answer some of the issues that led him to publish a story that ruined a program that by all accounts was legal, had proper oversight, and most importantly, actually caught some bad guys.

The argument made here that ” [a]nyone who thinks that the people who carried out 9/11 don’t know that we are tapping their phones, reading their emails and checking into their financing, is an idiot” is true up to a point. Terrorists may know we are trying to tap their phones but I doubt very much whether they realized most of our capabilities in this regard. For instance, by knowing the specific measures that we take in not just intercepting phone calls to each other but also to people who may be totally unrelated to their terrorist activities, one more avenue of potential monitoring dries up. The NSA intercept program - details of which are still lacking (which hasn’t stopped the left from declaring the program “illegal”) - was far more than a wiretapping program. It was designed to uncover terrorist networks, not just the jihadis themselves.

The fact that it was successful in doing so makes the above argument ring a little hollow. Despite taking ordinary precautions against having their communications monitored, once the program became public knowledge, the jihadis could put in place countermeasures making it that much harder for us to find out what they’re up to.

In a similar vein, the wire transfer program will now be useless to us. The fact that 9/11 hijackers received Western Union wire transfers on a regular basis probably alerted the terrorists to the idea that this particular way of moving money was now closed to them. But what about their financiers? The Islamic charities here and abroad that maintain a steady flow of cash to terrorist groups like Hamas, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, and others as well as the individuals who fund terrorists may or may not have been aware of the extent of our monitoring or of our capabilities to pull these transactions and the networks they reveal out of thin air.

Ultimately, the point is why assume they know everything that we are doing to spy on them? With that kind of attitude, we may as well shut everything down and wait for an attack, that trying to monitor their activities is useless and we may as well give up.

I think most Americans would reject that approach which is why, as Patterico points out here, Keller, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal may be in more trouble than they realized prior to publication:

The decision to prosecute newspaper personnel for publishing classified information is a vexing one that pits the core American value of free speech against a legitimate need for secrecy in some areas. I think that, in the particular circumstances of this case, a good argument can be made that a prosecution would be consistent with the relevant statutes and the Constitution. However, it is by no means certain that we would obtain a conviction — and prosecutions would be very bad public relations.

Accordingly, we should concentrate on finding the leakers, first and foremost. If that means dragging some journalists before a grand jury and forcing them to out their sources or go to jail, then so be it.

I think that analysis is spot on given that every newspaper and broadcast outlet in the country would oppose prosecution, no matter how much they may deserve it. And the people’s anger against the outing of this program may grow as information comes to light that there was a bi-partisan effort prior to the Times and others running their stories on this program to quash publication. Treasury Secretary Snow:

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

(HT: Captains Quarters)

While it appears that the LA Times has made a concerted effort to explain and justify its decision (that Patterico takes apart here), Keller has maintained a facade of arrogance about publication of the story that either reveals him to be completely clueless about the real anger at what the Times did or unconcerned about its impact on the War on Terror. Since Keller swears that he and his reporters assessed the potential damage to our efforts to fight terrorism, one would have to conclude that Keller and the Times ultimately placed their own narrow interpretation of the civil liberties implications of the program over what all agree was the importance of the program to uncovering terrorist networks.

This is arrogant and elitist on the part of Keller and the Times. And if we are forced to pay for their delusions of power by enduring a devastating terrorist attack, I daresay the questions asked of Keller will not be coming from bloggers, but from Federal prosecutors.

UPDATE

Steve Sturm suggests denying the New York Times access to the White House as well as Air Force I and other Presidential sites. In short, yank their press credentials.

It’s an interesting idea. I believe that the Administration froze out Helen Thomas in the immediate aftermath of the invasion - not for publishing secrets but because she was so rabid in her criticism. They didn’t yank her press pass but both the press secretary and the President refused to acknowledge her at press conferences and briefings. Since Thomas is the “Dean” of the Washington press corp, this was a slight that did not go unnoticed.

Can the Administration take away press privileges for the Times? I’m sure they can. But given the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would emanate from the media nationwide, my guess is that they may take them out of the loop the way they dissed Helen Thomas.