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| 'Times' Has Double Standard! July 14, 2006 Those who critique The New York Times' publication of a story on tracking down terrorist financing, as President Bush did, find many of the paper's defenders accusing them of attacking press freedom, even though they have done nothing of the kind. The tactic is the equivalent of saying someone is unpatriotic if he disagrees with U.S. foreign policy, a way of wrapping yourself in the First Amendment, and hiding there from charges of gross arrogance and irresponsibility. The fact that some Times columnists would seek this refuge is particularly strange considering that the Times in a 2004 editorial essentially said that the government should wreck a TV broadcasting company if it exercised its rights as spelled out in the Constitution. The paper's allegiance to free press and speech seems to reach little further than its own newsroom. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., wants an investigation and prosecution of the Times on charges of treason. Some people, even newspapers, say hip, hip, hurrah to the idea, but the administration itself isn't having any. As is the case with most critics and congressional Republicans, the administration has gone no further than to say the Times made an outrageously bad judgment call weakening a program that has saved lives by thwarting terrorist ambitions. The unavoidable conclusion, as voiced in a resolution of the House, is that the Times and other papers that joined in breaking the story put lives at risk. Frank Rich of the Times, said that nothing in the Times story was a surprise to terrorists and that the president's denunciation adds up to an "assault on a free press." Other liberal commentators echo the sentiment. Even the American Society of Newspaper Editors issued a statement saying the administration and Congress "are threatening America's bedrock values of free speech and free press with their attempts to demonize newspapers for fulfilling their constitutional role in our democratic society." |