What is Happening to the NY Times? Not One Single Word About McClellen's Bush Bombshell
I did notice that this morning.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan caused quite a ruckus Tuesday with the startling (but certainly not surprising) revelation that his former bosses instructed him to outright lie to the American public over the Valerie Plame CIA leak case.In his book "What Happened," due out in April, McClellan accuses the Busheviks of orchestrating a campaign of lies and deception over the Plame case. Consider this explosive excerpt:
"I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby," McClellan wrote. "There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself." At the time, the chief of staff was Andy Card.
Let's take a minute for some quick background: The Busheviks lied about Iraq's alleged WMD arsenal in the run-up to the invasion. They also claimed that Niger was selling Yellowcake uranium to Saddam Hussein. They sent Ambassador Joe Wilson to Africa in '02 to investigate. He came back and reported that he found nothing to substantiate this claim. Despite this finding, Bush re-stated the claim in his January '03 State of the Union Address to bolster his case for war. Angered by this blatant lie, Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in July '03 titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa." This pissed off the Bushies, and in a criminal act of retaliation they revealed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, who at the time was a covert CIA operative. And then they told former Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby to lie about it all during special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's CIA leak investigation. And then, as payback for his cover up, Bush commuted Libby's sentence after he was convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to investigators. And now it's being revealed by McClellan that he was instructed by his bosses--including the president and vice president--to stand before the media and voters and lie about it all as further protection against the erupting scandal.
Wow. Bush and Cheney shouldn't just be impeached...they should go to jail. Which is exactly where you or I'd be if we manufactured WMD evidence, outed a covert CIA agent as revenge against her whistle-blowing husband, and then obstructed justice with more lies and a criminal cover up.
But where the hell is the NY Times on this story? Nowhere. Incredibly, not one solitary word in Wednesday's newspaper. This is a huge bombshell with monumental ramifications--criminal behavior on the part of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Card-- which could and should finally take down this corrupt, disgraceful administration. Could be the biggest political scandal since Watergate. And how is it covered by the Times? It's not. I'm starting to think this once relevant newspaper must be secretly owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Where is the firebrand journalism that the venerable Washington Post demonstrated back in the 70's in serving to take down the corrupt Nixon administration? How is it possible that a story this important goes unreported in the NY Times? It's a sad commentary on the mainstream media overall. They've given this corrupt, criminal administration a virtual pass since it stepped inside the White House in 2000. It's allowed the Busheviks to lie, cheat, deceive, steal and bully with impunity. All you need to do is watch a Bush press conference in the White House press room to see just how neutered the press is. Bush is nasty, condescending, unrevealing, taunting and cavalier as he side-steps the issues and offers inane muck instead. And the press allows it. You can see the fear in their eyes, hoping that Bush doesn't publicly ridicule them, as he has done so often when he hears a tough question he doesn't particularly like. The media ought to be ashamed of itself. And now the Times seems to have joined this pathetic group.
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Here is another blogger's take on the NYT:
"Folks, the mainstream media stood by Bush while he told his lies to start a war. And now they are stuck. They cannot report on those lies now without condemning themselves as liars, because NOBODY is going to believe that news media corporations with budgets in the hundred-millions and staffs in the thousands all missed the obvious signs of deceptions that the spare-change-budget blogs all pointed out.
And this is why the New York Times won't report on anything negative about Bush (or Clinton). They can't. They cannot tell the truth now after so many lies because it will make the lies even more obvious.
Cancel your NY Times subscriptions. Avoid it at the news-stand. We learned only a few days ago that the New York Times doesn't print anything without White House permission. -- Mike Rivero, What Really Happened
Should I take his advice, readers?
Sure would save me a lot of time.
And the Washington Post:
"All The President's Liars: Where the Hell are The Washington Post and New York Times on McClellangate?!" by Steve Young
Do the investigative reporters at the Washington Post and New York Times fall under the Writers Guild Contract? Are Bernstein and Woodward too busy in makeup? Can the WGA and Producers get together and give satirical news an exemption?
While the Writers Strike keeps The Daily Show from cleverly pointing out the obvious, The Washington Post and New York Times ignore the obvious altogether.
We've been lied to by this White House.
Who says? Scott McClellan, the guy who was paid to lie for the guys who lied in the first place.
Of course, if he really wanted to bare his soul he would have let Helen Thomas write the foreword of "What Happened: Was I Lying Then Or Am I Lying Now?"
Point is, other than blogs and the Keith Olbermann network - and the Writers Strike continuing to keep Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert on the sidelines - we're left with the right to spin an insider story of a White House coverup.
The so-called liberal Mainstream Media? Try to find the McClellan revelation in todays liberal bastions, Washington Post or the New York Times.
Wonder if Howard Kurtz will wonder how his print employer, the one that was Ben Bradlee's once proud publication during Watergate, could have been missed what should be a blockbuster tale of deception of the American people at the very highest level.
The McClellan story may not be the smoking gun that leads to impeachment, but it could unlock the inner-workings of a White House who doesn't trust the American people with the truth and sees the betrayal of a covert CIA spy as acceptable politics. And that's not worth of a mention?
That's not to say that the broadcast's Lords of Loud won't cover McClellan's story.
Bill O'Reilly: It's a non-story. I said so in "Culture Warrior", now out in paperback.
Sean Hannity: Vince Foster, Kathleen Willey, Could have had bin Laden on a silver platter.
Mark Levin: McClellan is a brownshirt of the Clinton crime family.
Sean Hannity: George Soros, Moveon.org, I did not have sex with that woman...
Rush Limbaugh: So, McClellan is a proven liar. Why would we believe anything he says?
Sean Hannity: ACLU, New York Times, Human effect on global warming a sham
Michelle Malkin: Why is hell is Ingraham sitting in for Bill?
And The Washington Post?
(Cricket sound here)
If Ben Bradlee were dead he'd be spinning in his grave.
WGA member Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful." www.greatfailure.com
Authors Website: www.greatfailure.com
Authors Bio: A talk show host, author, columnist,award-winning television writer and filmmaker, his inspiring book, "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press) has been published internationally and has become required reading in the Wharton School of Business Masters Program. His "All The News That's Fit To Spoof " column appears every Sunday on the L.A. Daily News Oped Page. Steve has appeared all over national TV and radio with his unique brand of satirical punditry and social observations appearing in national periodicals from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, to his own weekly Internet column "The Lords Of Loud," at AlbionMonitor.net and The Huffington Post.
