Fear & Trembling at the Times?
After reading Richard Baehr’s article for the American Thinker blog, I suspect that that’s exactly the case at the NY Times. Here’s the heart of Mr. Baehr’s article:
Last Friday, US District Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Pentagon employee Larry Franklin to just over 12 years in prison for his role in providing classified Department of Defense documents to two former employees of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and to a diplomat, Naor Gilon of Israel.
Virtually all the coverage of the sentencing focused on the implications for Rosen and Weissman in their upcoming trial. But the real story of the sentencing, and the Judge’s comments on Friday, are what they might reveal about the risk to media leakers and publishers of classified information, such as those who provided information for the NSA surveillance story published by the New York Times.
I suspect that if the leakers of the NSA are found out, then the NY Times will scream bloody murder about revealing their sources. Who cares? It’s time that people that put our national security at risk get their heads handed to them. This isn’t a game. The NSA wiretapping triggered some arrests of terrorists. How big of a casualty count would these terrorists have caused? One plot detected by the wiretapping prevented the bombing of the Brooklyn Bridge. Would that have caused massive amounts of casualties? I’d bet that it would’ve.
The NY Times’ calling these traitors ‘whistleblowers’ is disgraceful, too. That’s self-serving and intellectually dishonest and they know it. And soon the entire world will know it, too.
Aside from any controversy about the legality of the surveillance itself, the media is concerned that the Justice Department investigators will demand to know who contacted the Times reporter James Risen and leaked the story to him.
I’m certain that this isn’t what Mr. Risen anticipated. Mr. Risen’s book has been leaping off the books by the dozens and now he’s likely to be squeezed into giving up his traitors. I doubt that that’s the storybook ending he first imagined.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
January 24th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
We need delivery of justice to these traitors and the sooner the better. Hopefully a prominent senator from Virginia will prove to be one of them. He has been very quiet lately and is normally a loudmouth similar to Ted Kennedy.
Make my day. Referencing them as whistleblowers is also deserving of time.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Well… might be a bit more complicated than we, myself included, think. Treason is a thing of it’s own. Violations of security another. That will all come out in the wash.
However, what is clear is the amazing disconnect between this leak and the Plame leak in the MSM.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Better start with the executives at companies like Boeing and Lockheed and Raytheon then…
January 24th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Here’s a better idea, Matthew: Let’s start with all the bubble-brained ivory tower types who don’t understand human nature and think treason is a game. You know, the ones who can’t distinguish reality from theory, and think a Hollywood movie about the “humanity” of terrorists is something to tug at our heartstrings.
Why, they wouldn’t know reality from Bugs Bunny and couldn’t care less if innocent people get killed, as long as their own distorted view of the world is promoted and advanced.
If you’re attacking the rich and powerful out of envy, try becoming one of the rich and powerful. But for God’s sake, quit sipping kool aid and get a grip about who’s evil and who’s not.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Sorry Carlos, I don’t sip on anyone’s Kool Aid, especially when it comes from the Republicans or the Democrats or any of their registered supporters. Hey, terrorists are not our friends so I’m not one of the fuzzy headed liberals that you like to get so angry about. However, I’m not one of your fuzzy headed conservatives either that is blind to the failings of corporate America and the rich and powerful that you seem to venerate and idolize.
January 25th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
There ya go agin, Matthew, assuming Ah’m all fer the rich guy and let the pore little snivler ache with hunger. Well, Ah jist happin ta be one a them pore guys, relatively speakin’, of course.
No, what I venerate and idolize is someone who lives by his/her word, understands human spirit and failings, and has a strong moral code that fairly well matches up to what the Bible says (and no, I’m not a Bible-thumping, fire-breathing dragon who condemns anyone who doesn’t agree with me to Hell).
An honest man is an honorable man. I have met in my lifetime executives of major corporations I wouldn’t have a cup of coffee with, and miserably poor people I would go out of my way to break bread with. Money has nothing to do with my politics, so try not to pigeonhole me into a Bush/Cheney, Haliburton-is-holy, major-corporations-are-gods square hole. My life and my belief systems just don’t fit it.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
My only concern is that the convictions and prison time won’t go high enough in the media to make a real impression on the liberals. Not just a report or book writer or two, but a few editors, managing editors and maybe a CEO or two getting 20 to life for publishing top secret, special compartmented information that jepordizes the lives and liberty of all of us.