Monday, June 26, 2006

“Half-Hearted”, Indeed

The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. John W. Snow, has a letter to the dissembling editor of The Old Grey Doxy. In his epistle, which appears here through Editor and Publisher Mr. Snow makes it plain that the administration’s efforts were anything but “half-hearted” as the paper – in its paper-thin and seditious defense – claimed:

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times’ decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide. In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

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.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror.

Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that “terror financiers know” our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the “public interest” in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective. Indeed, you have done so here.

What you’ve seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists. I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

John W. Snow, Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury

The bloody hands of The New York Times write their treason, and having writ, move on to the next bit of treason on their agenda.

It is time to boycott this noxious blood-letting organization and all its little imitators.

Whole-hearted liars: that’s what they are.

9 comments:

Zerosumgame said...

Look, almost all conservatives already have cancelled the Slimes. At this point, good Americans can not boycott the Times; they can only boycott its advertisers. The NY Slimes readership is already overwhelmingly the hard-left. Less than half of it is in the NYC metro area, and that is rather lefty to begin with.

When they went national, where do you think they got their mailing/calling lists from? NPR. PBS. Amnesty Internation. The ACLU.

They KNOW who is going to be a faithful reader.

The only way to hit them now is threaten a boycott of their advertisers; let Rush or Sean or Bill declare a day in July, and state that ANY company that advertses in the Slimes on that day will be boycotted. Now, some will not be scared off by such a boycott, because those who cave to it will be the target of hit pieces by the MSM, defending its own. On the other hand, if you're worried about a boycott let by Rush and Sean and their 20+ million listeners and their families, you'll think twice about advertising in the Slimes.

Nilk said...

Perhaps it might be time to look into the NYT's financials. Who are the major shareholders, who is on the board, and how likely is it that there could be ties to, say, Saudi Arabia or other states that enable and actively support terrorists?

Wally Ballou said...

The NYT doesn't need financial motives to undermine American securtiy under a Republican administration - many of their number sincerely believe that the only meaningful threat to American security comes from the "enemy within" - that is, the Republicans and other unsavory-Americans who resist the guidance of their betters. I'm sure there is no shame there today - being chastised by the President and his men just allows them to strut around as First Amendment champions - if they are prosecuted, they will be posing for their hagiographic portraits - perhaps as som many Saint Sebastians. They are at least a cinch for this year's Pultitzer prize for treason.

Jason Pappas said...

There’s been a call for legal action against the Times. I’m not convinced but it would be appropriate for the administration to bar Times reporters from all federal news conferences for a period of 90 days. And request all federal employees to reframe from talking to Times reporters on any matter during this period.

goesh said...

Talk is cheap, show me the indictments, otherwise it is just more political posturing BS. Right now the Administration is assessing the best political capital to be gained by either prosecuting or not....so much for the danger this put people in. I remain very, very skeptical.

El Jefe Maximo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Baron Bodissey said...

Jefe, you gotta make those long URLs into links!

El Jefe Maximo said...

Cruise over to Adventures of Chester...Chester has some good ideas about other ways we can let the Times know how we feel.

link.

El Jefe Maximo said...

Soooo sorry...how do you do that in a comment ?

X said...

You type in code like this... and I hope this works:

<a href="http://www.example.com/">Example.com</a>

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