[dave at farber.net: [IP] more on Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts]

[John Young]

The Times sitting on the NSA story for a year needs to be probed:
was it the Times or James Risen -- who has been overly close to
intel agencies for many years and a while back was supposedly 
reined in by the Times for his "going too far" intimacy with intel
sources, and producing reports as biased as those of Judith
Miller. 

The Times is now again in the position it got itself into by encouraging
Miller to sleep with the enemy as the WashPo did with Bob Woodward 
and Time and others who embed their WHores to get pillow talk, real or
imaginary. Then if caught apologize for the 10,000 year old practice,
asking for trust just like those it accuses of being distrustful.

Sy Hersh has criticized the Times for this duplicity, as did Raymond Bonner, 
and other ex-Timesers, manh of whom left the Times over being restricted 
in what they could report by what they termed as senior Times (like WashPo 
and Time) officials lusting for intimacy with powerful politicians -- or
fearful
of being excluded at the intimate dinners in DC and NYC and world capitals. 
Hoover at the FBI swapped dirt with the DC reporters, a 20,000-year-old
wedding of enforcers and informants.

While minor scandals are being reported for US and Iraqi journalists 
being paid to report favorably on the Administration, the big scandal is 
the non-cash rewards earned by world-class media for getting insider
exclusives to boost circulation, whether Brian Williams or Jim Lehrer, 
most recently handling Bush with delicacy, or what Sy Hersh says are 
the unending information bribes that come his way, especially from intel 
sources for their own interest but more often for the interests of their 
superiors all the way to the top who use the spooks to leak policy with 
an glaze of "anonymous" legitimization, albeit deniable, to those as easily
seduced with specialized information as members of Congress.

Will there ever be an investigation of the leak racket, the congressional
hearing dissimulation, so long as we succumb to its "secrets exposed" 
allure for what we are trained to think is believable about the press, the 
Congress, looking after the public interest in opposition to unchecked power?