Snoopgate

Yes, Virginia, it now has a name—and a scathing write-up in Newsweek, care of Jonathan Alter.

I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation…

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. … No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker.

My first thought: Fuck, what an unrepentant liar Bush really, really is. He doesn’t give a crap about anything but unlimited, unchecked power. My second thought: What the hell is wrong with the NY Times that, with all the other caveats they mentioned alongside the original story, trying to explain their decision to publish only now, they failed to mention their publisher and executive editor had been summoned to the Oval Office by a criminal desperate to keep his lawbreaking secret? Has Sulzberger uncovered some Producers-like scenario where he will somehow make more money if his paper’s credibility plummets into negative territory? Yeesh.

Meanwhile, the LA Times questions the NY Times’ decision to delay the publication of the story, even though they had the goods before last year’s presidential election.

Maha’s got more here, and John Howard breaks it down is his inimitable way.